The Pixie Chronicles
by PlatinumDragon
Summary: The tales of Pixie and Big Blue's own journey northward after their defeat at North Town
1. Episode 1: Bonds of Trust

Bonds of Trust

Disclaimer: The characters from Monster Rancher do not belong to me, and I do not take any credit for their creation or usage, beyond in this fanfiction. Please do not sue me. Please, feel free to MST this fanfiction if you please, but notify me before you do, and send me a copy when you are done. -Grin- I like to see what others can do to my fics. 

Special thanks to War-Ouki for pre-reading and running commentary.

Comments, criticism, thoughts, flames, and random death threats may be sent to Platinum_Dragon@usinternet.com; I do try to reply to all messages. 

This fanfic takes place after the episode 'Melcarba,' WARNING: There are spoilers for the show here. Enjoy!

*****

"Genki…"

"Genki…?" Slowly, he opened his eyes, wondering who was trying to wake him up. Hadn't he just fallen to sleep a few minutes ago? He was certain of it… Holly, Tiger, all of them had just stopped for the night, and he had only just lay down.

"Genki…?" After a moment, he became aware of the fact that he wasn't laying on the stone that he'd picked out for the night. For that matter, he wasn't laying on anything. He only floated in a vast darkness, nothing else in sight. He blinked, looking around, slowly. But… then who, or what had woken him up? Was he awake? For some reason, he wasn't entirely sure. It felt like he was, but at the same time, there was a sort of dreamy surrealness to it that precluded him being awake.

"Genki!" He turned - without being aware of turning - as he heard a voice from behind him.

"Pixie?" he asked, blinking as his mind put a face to that voice. But there was nobody behind him, only more of the same formless void. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he took a deep breath and shouted, "Pixie! I can't see you! Where are you?" The shout was strangely muted in the darkness, the words robbed of their energy before they were even out of his mouth, and there were no echoes to carry it on. More and more, he was certain that this was a dream, but… somehow, it wasn't just a dream. It… felt too real to be entirely a dream.

Abruptly, he realized that he had begun to move. There was no wind to feel it by; nothing he could see to go past, he just… knew that he was not still anymore. It was a sense that he was going somewhere else, and a presence that he was slowly beginning to feel drawing near, the first thing that he had felt here.

After what seemed a long time in that nothingness, his eyes gradually began to pick out a very small, flickering light far ahead of him, and understood that that was where he was going. That was what he was moving toward… no. He wasn't moving toward it, he was being pulled toward it. The light was pulling him in. As he got closer, the light slowly grow bigger, though no more bright, and still it flickered regularly. Suddenly he saw that the flickering was caused by a dark shape that was floating around the light. As it passed between Genki and the light, the presence would dim, as if weaker, and every time the shape completed an orbit, the light did grow dimmer, and the shape got closer.

He was nearly to the light now, almost close enough that he could have reached out and touched the edge of the light. "Genki…" came Pixie's voice again, weakly, from the light. He understood, suddenly, that the light was Pixie; her representation in this dream, and for a moment, the light grew slightly brighter. Almost painfully slowly, he started to reach out toward her. "Pixie, I'm almost-"

The dark shape crashed into him, and for a long moment, he couldn't breath, as a thousand voices screamed into his mind all at once. "Paindeathslavehaterevengefeardarknessfathersisterpaindeathslave…" Slowly, the voices quieted, dimmed as the shape moved past him again, leaving one almost silent voice in its wake that was somehow louder then all the others together. "Forgive me…" it whispered. Then even that contact was gone, and he could suddenly breath again. He sucked in a startled breath, as his hand touched the light-

-Genki stared, disbelieving, at what he had found in the far back of the cave. He heard Tiger saying something behind him, but he was too stunned even to understand his words, much less respond to them. No, it can't be, his mind tried to rationalize. They can't be… Slowly, he stepped forward, until the light from his torch fully illuminated what he'd not wanted to see.

Two Lost Disks, one with the image of a golem, the other with an image of…-

-Pixie's light suddenly flared brightly, as if startled by his momentary touch, and then he was thrown away from her, tumbling end over end. He had a glimpse of the darkness closing in on her, and her light suddenly dwindling away, faster than he could believe. And then…

And then…

Then…

"Genki! Genki! Come on, wake up you lazy kid!" shouted Suezo, pushing at his shoulder with his tail. Startled awake, Genki sat up abruptly, accidentally knocking the giant eyeball off balance, to fall off his perch on the edge of the stone Genki had gone to sleep on. He barely noticed, though, as he stared around himself. Holly was over by the firepit, already cooking breakfast; Tiger and Hare were squabbling over something, as usual. Golem was frowning up at the sky, which looked like it was getting ready for another downpour, and Moochi was still asleep, not far away from him. "Hey, what was that for?!?" complained Suezo, as he jumped back up beside Genki. He blinked at the eyeball.

"Oh… sorry Suezo. You just startled me awake, I didn't mean to knock you off," he said, after a moment. Suezo muttered something about hyper-active kids, and then hopped down and over to Holly. Genki sat there for a moment, frowning over the last image of his dream. It wasn't fading away; he could still see the Lost Disks as if they were right there in front of him. 

How long had it been, since they'd last seen the red-haired Pixie now, anyway? Nearly a month and a half, he realized, since the Scaled Jells had attacked them and he and Pixie had made their promise. Nearly a month and a half, now, since Big Blue had carried the bruised and battered Pixie off. It seemed as though it had been a lifetime ago suddenly. He shook his head, trying to clear the nightmare away. That had to have been what it was, just a nightmare because they hadn't heard from her in so long, he told himself.

"It's nice to get a break after that whole Melcarba thing," said Hare, as he and Tiger came over to sit near the firepit and Holly. She glanced at him and nodded, smiling as she stirred whatever it was that was cooking.

"Yeah, it's too bad that it was malfunctioning so badly. We could have really used its help against Moo," she replied, before grinning. "Oh well - come on everybody, breakfast is ready." Out of the corner of his eye, Genki saw Moochi scramble up at her call. Shaking his head again in a vain attempt to clear away the vision, he sighed, and then followed the little pink monster over. Holly served out the plates. "So, where does the map say we are today, Hare?" she asked. Hare paused in eating long enough to produce the map Captain Horn had given them.

"Well, assuming that the Melcarba factory was on the northern edge of the forest, then we should be pretty near the exit from this forest. According to the map, there's a village about a day from the treeline," he said. Holly nodded, as Genki frowned slightly.

"Hare," he asked suddenly, "are there any mountains or hills nearby where there might be some caves?" Everybody blinked, and looked at him in curiosity.

"What would you want with some musty old caves?" asked Suezo. Genki shook his head.

"Nothing. I'm just… wondering if there are," he said slowly. Hare shrugged after a moment.

"Well, there is this line of bluffs about half way between here and the village. But they're at least a day out off the path that we're following," he said. Genki nodded slowly. Could it just be a coincidence?

"Hey, what is it Genki?" asked Holly, sounding a little concerned. Genki shook his head, and grinned.

"Nothing Holly. Really! Everything is just great!"

  


Pixie sighed, as she extended her wings - biting down a wince of pain at how stiff the joints were. Frowning, she inspected them for the umpteenth time, and, also for the umpteenth time, sighed again at their sad state. For some reason, they seemed to be taking forever to heal. It had been nearly a month and a half since she'd gotten them slashed and torn up, and they were still barely half healed. She should have been able to glide on them by now, at least. "I hate tending wing injuries!" she said, to the empty cave she was sitting in. 

At least her ankle had finally healed up. It had seemed like only a minor sprain, but until the week before, she'd still not been able to put her own light weight on it without lances of pain flying up and down her leg. She could walk around again, which was more than she had been able to say a few weeks ago. She'd barely recognized the sun, when she'd stepped out of the cave she and Big Blue shared. But waiting for her wings to heal was going to drive her crazy. She couldn't even use her healing magic to speed it up; the thin membranes were too delicate for her admittedly crude abilities in healing. Perhaps she'd have put more practice into them, if she hadn't been a slave for the better part of her life. Pixie sighed one more time, and let her wings fold back up.

She looked around at her 'home.' A cave big enough for Big Blue to stand up straight in, and deep enough that it was always cool, but not cold. "How the mighty have fallen," she said wryly, and without nearly as much bitterness in her voice as she might have had before the Scaled Jell attack. Before she'd flown down to catch Genki when the Jells had knocked him off the cliff, and wound up with her wings so badly damaged, and her ankle sprained. "Pixie, of the Big Bad Four. Yup, anybody who saw me now would believe it." All that had ended when Genki and his friends had defeated her and Big Blue, and they had become renegades.

Her mind wandered slightly, to after she and Genki had landed. As much as she hated to admit it, she'd never have made it away without his help, not with her wings so badly damaged and her sprained ankle. She'd tried to anyway, though, but Genki had been too stubborn to just leave her alone, despite her protests that she hadn't wanted a human's help. She had to give the kid credit; once he had his mind set on something, there was just no stopping him. Pixie shook her head, and smirked ruefully.

"Aww, you might as well admit it Pixie. You actually miss the little twerp," she said aloud.

"Miss who, Master Pixie?" She jumped, startled, as Big Blue spoke, feeling her cheeks go hot as the golem gave her a curious look. Mentally she berated herself for not paying attention. Golem weren't exactly known for moving silently, but she'd never even heard him coming in.

"Next I'll let a mouse bite me in the ankle," she muttered, willing her blush to go away. Naturally, her body chose to ignore the order, and her cheeks grew hotter still. "Genki, I was just thinking that it's been awhile since we last saw them. At the rate they were moving, they should have been to this area by now." Her long-time friend and companion simply nodded.

"I see, Master Pixie," he said, almost but not quite dryly. She gave him a scowl that should have given even the golem a shiver, but he merely nodded again. Pixie winced; she had the feeling that her blush was even redder than her hair, now. After a moment, he asked, "How are your wings?" With a grateful look for the change of subject, she sighed.

"Better. Still no where near repaired enough to fly, but better. I think maybe a few more weeks-" A few more weeks! She was going to go nuts! "- and I'll at least be able to glide," she said. He nodded again.

"That is good to know, Master Pixie. Shall I prepare the morning meal, now?" he asked. She grinned wryly at him. 

"You do realize that you aren't my servant anymore, don't you? You don't have to do everything for me, Blue," she reminded him. The barest hint of a smile came to the golem's stone face.

"Of course. But then, you've never gone out of your way to break me of the habits, not that I mind," he replied. Pixie had to laugh at that.

"Touché."

  


Genki was skating along quietly, thinking about his nightmare, when Holly dropped in beside him, smiling slightly. "Ok Genki, you've brooded long enough. What's the matter?" she asked him. He blinked at her, but grinned.

"Brooding? What do you mean? Everything is A.O.K!" he exclaimed. Holly grinned at him.

"Then why aren't you at the head of the group like you usually are, instead of way back here?" she asked. Genki laughed.

"What? Of course I'm…" He trailed off, as he looked around and noticed that Golem was a good ten feet ahead of him - and Golem was always the one to bring up the rear. He sighed. "That obvious, huh?" he said. Holly nodded.

"When you didn't bounce around camp this morning like you usually do, we got a little worried," she told him. Genki grinned weakly.

"Would you believe that I just didn't sleep well, and was just kinda tired?" he asked her. Holly grinned, shaking her head. 

"Not really, but I'll tell you what. If I can guess in… say, three tries what you're worried about, we'll talk about it. If not, then I won't bring it up again unless you want to talk about it," she suggested. He gave her a sideways look, a little suspicious, but couldn't resist her offer. Besides, he knew that she'd never guess what was bothering him. 

"Alright," he agreed, grinning. Holly smiled.

"Ok… Are you thinking about your home?" she asked. Genki laughed, shaking his head.

"Nope, that's not even close. That's one," he told her. She looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Are you… thinking about what will happen once we catch up to Gray Wolf?" she guessed. Genki shook his head again, a little more solemnly this time.

"Uh-uh. I am a little worried about Tiger, but I know we'll defeat Gray Wolf when we meet him," he said. "That's two, only one guess left, Holly," he said, grinning. She nodded, smiling a little secretively.

"One guess left," she agreed. "Hmmm… What could it be…" He laughed.

"You might as well give up, Holly. You'll never guess," he said. Holly's secretive smile widened slightly.

"I wonder… Could you maybe be worried about Pixie?" she asked suddenly, as if the idea had just occurred to her.

"Nope, I'm…" he started, before trailing off as he really heard what she'd just said. "Hey, how did you…?" Holly smiled again, a little apologetically this time.

"Tiger said that he thought he heard you muttering her name just before Suezo woke you up this morning," she admitted. Genki frowned at her.

"Cheater," he complained, before sighing. Holly's expression turned a bit more serious.

"Well? Even if I did have a little help, we had a deal. We're all worried about you Genki, what's wrong?" she asked him. Genki sighed again, and looked at her.

"I dunno Holly. Last night I had a really bad nightmare, except that I can still remember every bit of it. I was floating somewhere, and then I saw this light, and a dark shape floating around it. But as I got closer, I realized that the light was actually Pixie. Then the dark shape touched me…" He shivered. "I don't know what it was, but it… frightened me. After I got past it, I managed to touch her…" He paused, and looked at Holly again. "I saw myself in a cave, and at the back of the cave, I saw two… Lost Disks…" he finished quietly. Holly blinked, and frowned in concern.

"I hope Big Blue and she are alright… It's been a long time since we last saw them," she said. Genki nodded.

"Yeah, I know. That's what's got me so worried. I mean, I'm sure it was just a nightmare, but… it's still all so clear. And… I think that she was calling for me," he told Holly quietly. She looked at him in surprise.

"Calling for you?" she asked. He shook his head.

"Yeah, only, it wasn't like she expected or even knew I was there," he said. Then suddenly he had an idea. "Holly, can you ask the Magic Stone where she is?" he suggested. She blinked, but slowly nodded.

"I… don't know if it can locate a single monster, unless it's very powerful, like the Phoenix and Moo," she told him. "But I'll try," she added, as she stopped, and drew the pendant from its hiding place under her clothing.

"Thanks, Holly," he said quietly. She nodded, and then closed her eyes, cupping her hands under the smooth green stone. 

"Magic Stone… Please, show us the way to find Pixie," she asked it. It began to glow, gently floating out of her hands and then paused, searching. After a long moment, though, it slowly settled back into her hands. She sighed, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, Genki. I just don't have fine enough control over it to find them," she said, as she moved to put it away. By now, the others had noticed that they had stopped, and were watching quietly from a short distance. Genki lightly caught her wrist, and she blinked at him.

"Wait - Can I try? Just once? I know that it probably won't work, but… I have to make sure," he said. Slowly, Holly nodded, and unclasped the pendant.

"It can't hurt to at least let you try, Genki, but you have to really focus," she said. "It took me a lot of tries, before I finally managed to find Suezo's Disk," she warned him. He nodded, as she handed him to stone. Genki stared at it for a moment. He'd seen Holly do this dozens of times now, since coming here, but he also remembered the first and only time he had tried to use it. The smooth green stone hadn't even flickered, much less shown him where a disk was. But this time was different, he told himself. This time, he had to have its help… and he knew that he'd grown up a lot, since then. The first time he'd tried, he'd still thought of all of this as just a game. Now, after all that they had been through… He held the stone up, and concentrated on it, aware of the others' gazes on him.

"Please… show me how to find her," he asked quietly. For a long moment, the stone just sat there, and Holly watched in silence. "Please… I need your help… Pixie needs your help. Just show us where she is, Magic Stone."

Slowly, very, very slowly, the stone rose out of his hands, very faintly beginning to glow. He saw Holly's eyes widen as it did, but forced himself to stay focused on the gem. Dimly, in the back of his head, he could feel it, stretching out to look, stretching as far as it could… But finding nothing. Slowly, it started to pull back. "Don't give up yet, she's close, I know it," he whispered. The stone seemed to hesitate, and then the sensation of it stretching out grew even a little bit more than it had before. And then suddenly, he felt her. She was just barely close enough for the stone to touch; very briefly he felt sleepy confusion and surprise. Then suddenly the link broke, and he found himself laying on the ground, Holly and the others standing over him with concerned expressions, still holding tightly to the stone.

The Phoenix was pointing toward the line of bluffs Hare had said were ahead of them.

  


Pixie's eyes fluttered open, as she suddenly woke up. "Huh?" She had the strangest feeling that somebody had just called her name, except that she was alone with Big Blue. She shook her head, wishing she knew why she'd been sleeping so much in the last month; if she hadn't been, maybe she would have heard the caller. Pixie looked around, sitting up, but the only thing that moved were the flickering flames of the fire. Blinking, she slowly stood and walked out to the cave entrance, shielding her eyes from the bright sunlight. There was nothing in sight that might have woken her up. "What the…?"

"Master Pixie?" came Big Blue's deep voice. She glance back.

"Up here, Blue," she called, before looking back toward the low hill that led up to their cave. There was no cover here for anybody to sneak up through. She could see clearly all the way to the forest in the south, and the abandoned village in the north. Big Blue came up beside her.

"Is something the matter?" he asked her. Pixie glanced at him briefly, frowning.

"I'm not sure. You're certain Gray Wolf and his pack don't patrol here?" she asked. He nodded.

"Yes. They ran off all the monsters and sent the humans to us. I… spoke with several of them," he said. Pixie sighed. He meant that he had interrogated or tortured some of them. Well, they both regretted some of the things that they had done at Moo's command. Most of the things that they'd done at his command, she amended, and they had both done what they could to atone. If it was possible to atone for their crimes. Sometimes, she wondered. 

"Hmm… I must have just been imagining things," she said, frowning out at the landscape one more time. She'd been so certain she'd sensed someone nearby… "Just in case though, let's get everything together. For some reason, I don't think we should stay here anymore," she said.

"There is another cave above this one that would suit us well. We will be able to see this cave from it, Master Pixie," he told her. She nodded.

"I trust it is suitably out of the way," she said. He nodded.

"It is a bit of a climb, but once your wings are fully healed, you'll easily be able to fly to it," he replied. She smirked.

"If they ever heal," she muttered. "Good. Let's be sure to leave behind some proof that we really are gone," she suggested. Big Blue nodded.

"Yes, Master Pixie."

  


"So, what do we do next?" asked Tiger, giving Hare a glare. The giant rabbit shrugged.

"If Genki is right, and Pixie needs help, then we should follow the Magic Stone to her. After all, they've helped us out a number of times… We do owe them," he said. Tiger nodded grudgingly. He hated admitting it when Hare was right. The problem was that Hare usually was right. It irked him to no end, but it was true, unfortunately.

"Pixie and Big Blue have been searching for friends since we defeated them, but are afraid to trust again because of Moo's betrayal," rumbled Golem softly. Granted, softly for a golem was a bit louder than a small avalanche, but still, the difference was there. "They fear their trust will again be broken, and so, are reluctant to take the chance." Tiger had to give the big guy credit; he had a way of seeing into a person's soul. Tiger doubted he would have given Undine the time of day, but Golem had seen into her truer self. Most people would have called Golem slow, or perhaps stupid. Quite to the contrary, Tiger knew. He liked to think things out, wary of hurting others with quick words or actions. It was a quality Tiger had never quite mastered, and envied.

"Can you really blame them?" asked Holly, sadly. "In a way, they lost their whole world because of us." She sighed, and they were all silent for a moment. Tiger frowned. Once, he'd been much like Pixie and Big Blue as well. Tiger of the Wind, master thief of the badlands, and one of the most feared and hated monsters around. His pack had been powerful, respected… and then he'd met Genki, Holly and the others, and the Black Dinos had destroyed his pack, turning them to lost disks. It hadn't been their fault, but for a long time, he'd blamed them, if secretly. His pack had been his family, much like Moo's followers had been Pixie and Big Blue's.

"Whether they trust us or not is beside the point. They've helped us a lot of times, even though they didn't have to," said Genki. Tiger glanced at the young boy - no, Tiger corrected himself, the young man. No matter how young he might be physically, he'd grown quite a bit since Tiger had first met him. Then again, mused Tiger, so had he. Once, he wouldn't have waited for the team. He'd just have gone. He'd made that mistake not long ago, and it had almost cost Holly her life when she'd jumped between him and the poison dart the black worm had shot at him. In truth, he still felt guilty over it; it never would have happened, if he hadn't been so hot-headed. All because he hadn't wanted to believe that his brother could possibly be the leader of Moo's forces in this area.

Gray Wolf… how could you let him corrupt you? he asked himself for the umpteenth time. But he knew his brother had just been surviving - exactly how Tiger had taught him. No matter what, survive. No matter the consequences, no matter the sacrifice, do what ever you must to survive. No matter who it hurt. Tiger remembered that lesson all too well. "Genki is right," he said quietly. Everybody blinked, and looked at him, and no wonder; he rarely spoke up in a planning meeting except to insult Hare. "They didn't have to help us, and shouldn't have, after the pain that we caused them. How can we claim to be fighting for good, but leave them for whatever might be after them?" he finished. For a long moment, they were quiet. Then Holly lifted the Magic Stone, on which the Phoenix was still pointing the way. It seemed to have been locked onto Pixie, for now.

"We'd better get moving, then," she said, standing. They all followed suit, but before they could start out, there was a crash from ahead. Tiger was in a ready stance immediately, stretching out to hear, smelling the air. Listen to the wind, smell your prey on it. That was another of his lessons for Gray Wolf. What ever was coming… he blinked, as a slight breeze brought him the scent.

"It's a human," he said quietly, though he didn't lower his guard. Holly glanced at him, and nodded, before cupping her hands to her mouth.

"It's ok, we're not Baddies! You can come out!" she called. For a moment, there was silence, and then…

"You… you're Human? Not evil monsters?" came the tentative call. A moment later, a small girl's face peeked out from behind a tree. It was filled with fear, and just a little surprise. She was fairly young; in fact, she looked like she was even younger than Genki.

"Relax," said Holly, smiling and beckoning her toward them. "We're Goodies," she said. Slowly, the young girl came out from behind the tree, and took a few cautious steps toward them. She had an air about her of a deer ready to flee. "My name is Holly, and this is Genki, Tiger of the Wind, Hare, Suezo, Golem and Moochi. What's your name?" she asked gently.

"I… I'm Claira. How… how did you stay free of Gray Wolf and his pack?" she asked slowly. Genki grinned. 

"We're on a journey to stop Moo," he told her. "He's tried to capture us before, but we've beat him every time!" Claira's eyes widened.

"You… You're the Searchers? My family and I have heard about you, from other groups that managed to stay free, and that you freed," she told them. Genki and Holly looked at each other, and then Holly looked back at Claira.

"Where is your family?" she asked, smiling comfortingly. For a moment, Claira stood there, and then suddenly she burst into tears.

"At… the village. Some of Gray Wolf's Baddies captured them," she sobbed. "Mama pushed me away and told me to run as hard as I could. A couple followed me, but I think I lost them in the woods." Tiger glanced at Holly.

"I'll go make sure she did," he said. She nodded, and he lopped out into the woods, as she moved forward to comfort the little girl, who was rubbing her face with the sleeve of her neatly arranged dress.

  


Genki sighed as Tiger trotted back into the camp, shaking his head when Holly asked him if there had been any followers. Claira was not far away, having fallen asleep, exhausted. He looked back at Holly. "We'll have to split up. You guys go to the village with Claira and free her parents, and I'll go find Pixie," he said. Holly gave him a surprised look.

"You can't go alone, Genki," she said. Genki shook his head.

"If you have to fight, then you'll need everybody. I can get there faster alone anyway, and warn them. Between Pixie and Big Blue, we shouldn't have any troubles," he told her. "I'll be alright." She frowned, and looked like she was about to argue when Tiger moved over beside him.

"I'll go with him Holly," he said quietly. Genki blinked, and looked at the wolf-like monster. Holly frowned for another moment, before sighing and nodding.

"Alright," she agreed, and after a pause, added, "Here, take the stone with. Since it seems to be locked on to Pixie, it'll be easier for you to find her." She unclasped the pendant carefully, and handed it to him. Genki nodded quietly.

"I'll keep it safe, Holly, I promise. We should be back in a couple days," he said. Hare wandered over.

"Better keep a close eye on Tiger, Genki," he said, for once sounding serious. But Genki recognized the glint in his eye all too well, and as usual, Tiger took the bait.

"Yeah, like you care if I actually come back," he muttered.

"Tiger, I'm hurt! Of course I care! After all, without you around, who would I have to torture!" laughed the giant rabbit. Tiger growled something under his breath that Genki was sure he was better off having not heard.

"Alright you two, that's enough," said Holly after a moment. "Seriously, Genki, Tiger. Be careful out there." They both nodded.

"Don't worry about us, Holly," said Tiger. "Just keep clear of Hare's hair-brained schemes, and we'll see you in a couple of days." Holly nodded, as Hare frowned at Tiger. Meanwhile, Genki chalked up another point for Tiger. He didn't think that he'd ever understand their strange friendship. Absolute respect for each other one minute, nothing but jibes and insults the next.

"We can meet up at the village," she said. They nodded again.

"We'll see you then," said Genki. Then he and Tiger dashed off. As the camp faded behind them, he glanced at Tiger. "So, what made you decide to come along?" he asked. Tiger glanced at him.

"Somebody's gotta cover your back," he replied, with the faintest hint of a smirk on his muzzle.

"Keep me outta trouble, you mean," said Genki, grinning.

"Pretty much."

"Thanks, Tiger," he said, after a moment. Tiger merely nodded, and kept running.

  


Holly watched until Genki and Tiger disappeared into the distance, and then turned to Hare. He smiled at her for a second. "They'll be alright. You know Genki. The harder somebody tries to stop him, the harder he pushes onward. And as for Tiger… Well, you get the idea, anyway," he said. Holly nodded, smiling slightly.

"I know, but that's not what I was thinking about, Hare," she told him. He looked at her uncertainly.

"What is it, then?" he asked. Holly looked back in the direction the two had gone.

"The Magic Stone… It asked to go with him," she said. Hare blinked, and started at her.

"It what?"

"I shouldn't say that it asked to go with him, but that's the only way I can think of describing it. I don't know, I've always had a sense of the stone, and when Genki wanted to split up… It wanted to go with him," she explained.

"So that's why you sent it with him," he said. She nodded.

"I wish I understood how he was able to use it in the first place. The first time he tried, there was no reaction at all, and if he could use it, it would have at least reacted to him," she told him. Hare frowned in thought.

"Do you remember when Gali hit us with that energy drain attack in his palace?" he asked. Holly nodded slowly. They'd all been completely drained, even Genki. Only Moochi had escaped the attack, and had gone on to win the battle for them. "You remember how we suddenly got that burst of energy, just in time to escape?"

"Yeah, I do. I always wondered where it came from," she said. Hare nodded.

"I think that it came from Genki, Holly. Just before it hit us, I heard him shout energy, the way that Tiger or I might have cast a spell or called an attack," he told her quietly. Holly stared at him.

"How could that be possible? He's not even from this world, and besides, no humans have magical attacks like monsters do," she said. He nodded again.

"Right. So how did he get here in the first place? It had to have been something other than just both of you unlocking a magic disk at the same time. It's simple logic. As rarely as it happened in your area, disk unlocking was a fairly common thing. Think about Monol's story - they had whole factories that did nothing but locking and unlocking disks," he said. She nodded, slowly. "There had to have been an uncommon factor that made it not so simple. And even if that wasn't it, why Genki? Why somebody that just happens to have the ability to use the stone, even if only under a very specific circumstances? Coincidence? Maybe, but still…" He paused a moment. "You said the stone seemed to guide you to Golem, Tiger and me. I wonder… Does the stone know something about Genki that we don't?" he asked. They looked at each other silently for a moment, and then both turned to look in the direction Genki and Tiger had gone.

"What… What exactly are you suggesting, Hare?" she asked finally. He shook his head.

"I'm not sure, Holly. But I can't shake the feeling that we're overlooking something that should be obvious. So far, we only know of four people that can use the stone. You, your father, Moo, and now Genki," he said. That's only three, Holly thought to herself sadly, because Moo possessed my father. "There has to be a link between all four. It's obvious between you and your father - family. But Moo? And now Genki?" He shook his head again. "There has to be something you all share that allows you to use the stone - something that the stone itself is able to sense." Holly frowned in thought.

"But what?" she asked. Hare sighed.

"That, unfortunately, is the sixty-four trillion gold question," he replied. "In any event, we have our own mission to see too far now." Holly nodded.

"Yeah," she said, as she turned back to the camp. "We should probably get moving, shouldn't we?" He nodded.

"I'll talk to Claira, and see if I can't figure out what kind of monsters we'll be up against," he told her.

"Right," she agreed, as she knelt beside the little girl and gently shook her awake. She looked up, blinking.

"Holly?" she asked. Holly smiled.

"Do you think you can show us where your family is, if we go to the village?" she asked. Claira nodded slowly.

"I - I think so," she said. Holly nodded.

"Ok. Hare, Suezo, Golem, Moochi and I are going to set them free, ok?" she said, smiling at her. Claira's eyes widened.

"Really?" she asked. Holly nodded again, and smiled.

"Really," she told her. Claira laughed in delight, and hugged her.

"Oh, thank you Holly!" she cried. "But what about Genki and Tiger? Aren't they going with too?" she asked after a moment. Holly smiled again, reassuringly.

"Tiger and Genki had to go help some other friends of ours, but they'll be back," she told her. The little girl's face fell a little.

"Oh…" Holly gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze.

"Don't worry about them. Genki and Tiger will be alright, and we're going to set your parents free. Everything will be alright, ok?" she asked. Claira grinned, and nodded enthusiastically. 

"O. K.!" she exclaimed. Smiling, Holly turned to Moochi.

"Will you stay with Claira, make sure that she stays safe" she asked. The little pink monster nodded.

"Yes-chi!" he replied. Holly nodded.

"Alright." She stood up. "Everybody ready to go?" she asked, raising her voice a little.

"Ready!"

"Let's get going then!"

  


Genki slowed to a stop, as the line of bluffs came into view, and pulled out the Magic Stone again. The Phoenix was pointing a little to the left now, toward the far end of the bluffs. He glanced over at Tiger. "What do you think? Rest here for the night, or keep going?" he asked. The blue and white furred monster shrugged, looking at him,

"I don't know, Genki. We might not get a chance to rest once we get there, but on the other paw, if we rest now, we might be too late," he said. "It's your call. Personally, I'd probably go on." Genki frowned a moment.

"Let's get a bit closer, and then rest for a couple hours. We won't be any help if we're too tired to fight once we get there," he said finally. Tiger nodded, as they started moving again.

"What did happen between you and Pixie, while the rest of us were out looking for you?" he asked after a moment. Genki glanced at Tiger. He still hadn't told them everything that had happened, or about the promise he and Pixie had made.

"Why do you ask?" he countered.

"Because there's been something… distant about you since then. I don't think that the other have noticed yet, but I have," he replied. "And now, seemingly by chance, you get a dream about her needing help. I'm sure Hare could come up with a dozen ways of explaining it, but me, I'm betting it has something to do with the Jell attack, and the time that you were alone with her." Genki frowned at him. He didn't like lying to his friends, but he didn't want to embarrass Pixie by telling them about what had happened.

"Nothing happened, Tiger. She hurt her ankle and wings, and I helped her stay away from the Scaled Jells," he said. Tiger looked at him sideways, with a faint smirk in his eyes.

"I believe that about as much as I believe Suezo will ever be able to use his Teleport ability whenever he wants. Something else happened, too, and it was something that Golem said that made me notice. 'Pixie and Big Blue have been searching for friends since we defeated them, but are afraid to trust again because of Moo's betrayal,'" he quoted.

"Yeah, so?" asked Genki. Tiger glanced at him again.

"So, when we found you two after she'd blasted the Scaled Jells, she trusted you. Something had to happen to bring that out," he said. "She always respected you - even if she didn't show it - but until then, like Golem said, she'd been afraid to trust," he finished. Genki looked at him for a long moment.

"If I tell you, will you promise me that you won't tell the others?" he asked finally. Tiger nodded.

"It's not my place to tell them, only yours," he replied. Genki nodded slowly.

"I think that I caught her off guard. She didn't want my help to get away, even though it was obvious that she couldn't alone, and I wouldn't take no for an answer. I don't think that she understood why I didn't just leave her there," he said quietly. Slowly, Tiger nodded.

"Like other humans had done to her in the past. Like she'd grown to expect, after how she and the other monsters had been used as slaves by that king," he said. Genki nodded. Of all of them, Tiger would have the easiest time understanding what he was saying, Genki knew; he'd been mistreated by humans as well.

"Yeah, that's what I realized that first night. She kept saying that she didn't want a human's help or pity. Actually, in a way she reminded me a lot of you when we first met," he said carefully. "Too proud to admit that she needed help."

"And afraid of what it might cost her," added Tiger quietly. Genki nodded again.

"The whole second day, it was as if she expected me to either run off, or blame everything on her," he said, before pausing. He hadn't told them this part yet, mostly because he didn't like to think of how… vulnerable she had looked then. It just didn't fit in with his image of Pixie. "About halfway down the day, I tripped over a root and we both tumbled down a small hill. We weren't really hurt, but we landed in a pit of quicksand. I'd landed near a tree, and managed to get out by grabbing a vine, but when I reached back for Pixie, she hesitated. I think… that at first, she didn't care if it swallowed her up, as long as she didn't have to trust me to pull her out. But… I think that she may have finally realized that I wasn't helping her because I expected to get something out of it. That I was helping her because she was a friend." He paused a moment. "Just before you guys finally caught up with us, we made a promise; she promised that she and Big Blue would join us, someday," he finished quietly. Tiger frowned a moment.

"So that's what that pinkie thing was about," said Tiger. Genki nodded, and Tiger looked thoughtful for a moment. "I don't know Genki… I'll be the first to admit that I was wrong about humans, but Pixie was hurt by them a lot worse than I was. For some reason that I don't understand, she's built some sort of a bond with you, when she would have probably killed anyone else. It's a talent you seem to have, making friends where others wouldn't, but I'd still be careful, if I were you," he said finally. Genki nodded.

"I know, Tiger. But… When we beat Moo, if Monsters and Humans still don't trust each other, will we really have won? Maybe Pixie is only one monster, and I'm only one human, but the trust has to start somewhere, doesn't it?" he asked quietly. Tiger merely nodded at him in silence, as they raced on toward the bluffs.

  


Pixie glanced up from the fire, as Big Blue pulled himself up to the entrance of the new cave. The 'short climb,' as he had put it, was a good fifty foot drop. The cave was above and to the left of their old one; there was a bit of a ledge that they could look over and be reasonably hidden. "Find anything?" she asked. He shook his head.

"Nothing has approached the cave, Master Pixie. I did see some activity in the village, though," he replied. She straightened, tensing.

"Gray Wolf?" she asked. Maybe she'd been right after all…

"No. I could not tell at that distance what they were, but it was not Gray Wolf and his pack. Do you want me to go closer tonight and find out?" he asked her. Pixie frowned, and stretched out her wings again to check them.

"Bah… If my wings were healed, I could fly there and be back in five minutes," she complained. Finally though, she shook her head. "No. As long as they don't come near, just leave them be. What they don't know can't hurt us," she said. Big Blue merely nodded, and then sat down

"If I may ask a question, Master Pixie?" he said. She looked at him, and shrugged.

"You've never had to ask my permission before," she reminded him. Big Blue nodded.

"What is it that has been troubling you? You have been… restive the last few days," he rumbled. Pixie frowned at him for a moment, and then sighed.

"I'm not sure, Blue. Something has me unsettled, but I can't put my finger on what," she replied, glancing in the same direction that she had the day before, when that something had woken her up. The more that she'd thought about it, the more that something had seemed familiar, and since late the night before, she'd had a vague sense of a presence in the distance, one that was even now drawing nearer. Instead of making her uneasy, though, it was almost… a reassuring presence. She sighed again. "I'm probably just going a little stir crazy from all this sitting around waiting for my wings to heal!" she said. The problem with that was that it still didn't explain that vague sense in the far back corner of her mind, the one that was getting closer. If I could only get a better grip on it, I'd know what it was!

"A better grip on what, Master Pixie?" asked Big Blue, and she winced as she realized that she'd spoken her last thought aloud. There was no trying to dismiss it now.

"I… don't know, Blue. It's what woke me up yesterday, before we moved up here. There's something… familiar, something I can feel now, in the very back of my mind. It…" There was a subtle change in the sense, and abruptly she knew that what ever was coming closer was a he. "He is coming this way. And fast, too," she said.

"How do you know this? Who is he?" asked the golem, a slight note of concern in his voice. She shook her head.

"It doesn't work that way, Blue. I didn't even know it was a he, until just now - for that matter, I don't know how I know it is a he. I just do," she told him, and then pointed. "I can't say how I know that this is the direction that he's coming from either, but I do. Somehow, I know that I'm pointing straight at him," she said, before shaking her head. "And what's got me the most off balance is that I don't feel like I'm in danger - just the opposite, the closer he gets, the safer I feel. It's a most disturbing sensation," she said quietly. 

Big Blue remained silent a moment, frowning thoughtfully. Then, slowly, he said, "That's toward where Genki and his friends would come out of the forest, isn't it?" Pixie blinked, and stared at the golem.

"You aren't suggesting what I think you're suggesting, I hope," she said, frowning. He spread his huge hands in a calming gesture, shaking his head.

"I would not, Master Pixie, but… Did you not once tell me that the pixie could not use the full of your powers unless bonded to a human? That the power draw was too great to survive, without the shared life-force to draw upon?" he asked. Then carefully added, "You have damaged your wings worse than this before, but I do not remember them taking so long to heal… as they might, if the one you had bonded was not near enough to share their life-force with you, thus forcing you to rely on only your own to fill both your magic stores and heal with." She shook her head, frowning.

"But that's not possible, both myself and the bonded would have had to make a conscious choice to bond, saying our intent, and I certainly didn't," she said. Big Blue looked at her.

"Is that the only way?" he asked. She shook her head again.

"Yes…" Then she paused, remembering a story her grandmother had told her. "Well… no. When I was very young, before…" She paused again, as she unwillingly remembered when her entire village had been enslaved by the Slave Masters, remembered the faces of her father and sister as they were led away from her. After a moment, she managed to shake it off, and then continued. "Before the Slave Masters came, I remember my grandmother telling us that sometimes, the bond could form without a conscious choice, if both the pixie and the human would normally have been willing. But it could only happen under certain extreme circumstances," she said slowly.

"Extreme circumstances - like having no other way to survive an attack by Scaled Jells than through magic you could only use if bonded?" he pointed out quietly. She opened her mouth to retort sharply, but then paused. He was right, she couldn't have used those two spells unless she'd been bonded, and the situation would definitely have been extreme enough… She thought again, of how often she'd been tired, and how long it had taken her ankle to heal.

"But I would have known!" she protested. "You know that I've bonded humans before, just long enough to use that attack, and the sense was always immediate." Bonded them, and then broken the bond immediately, so that it didn't become permanent. He nodded.

"I know… but you were exhausted at the time, and I carried you away immediately. Perhaps it was before you were rested enough to actually notice it - you did pass out almost as soon as we were out of sight of them," he said. Pixie frowned.

"Ok… Let's assume - just assume! - for a moment that you're right, and I did bond…" She trailed off, with a sigh. If he was right, and she had bonded, then the only one she could have bonded was… "Genki. Why not sense him before now? I should have been able to feel him as soon as I had rested a little." He shrugged.

"You know more about the bond than I. Perhaps you were too far away, and he only recently came close enough for the bond to finish forming. Or perhaps it finished forming before our groups separated, but with your energy drained, you did not have the strength to feel it," he said, before pausing and looking at her. "Or… you did not wish to acknowledge it before it was too late to sever it," he finished carefully.

"Why in the world would I want to be permanently bonded to a hyper-active twelve year-old brat!" she railed at him with a glare. At least, she had intended it to be a railing and a glare. It came out sounding more like a frantic denial and with a look that would have made a timid mouse laugh. Admit it, said a small voice deep inside. If you would have chosen willingly to bond with any one human, it would have been Genki. It was true, no matter how much she wanted to say that it wasn't. If not before the Scaled Jell attack, then from the second he'd refused to leave her behind, it had been so. Pixie wouldn't have trusted any other human to share something so… for lack of a better word, intimate with. And somehow, she knew Genki wouldn't have hesitated to agree. Just as he hadn't hesitated to fight with her when they'd first met, though she was clearly the stronger. Just as he hadn't hesitated to jump over her to try to protect her when she'd tried brining the ruins down on herself, even though it would have only ended in him being crushed as well, had Big Blue not been there to shield them both.

Just as he hadn't hesitated to stay with her, no matter how she protested, no matter how much danger he wound up in because of her condition. Genki had stayed with her, and that was the one thing that she had needed most - someone that wouldn't betray her or leave her behind because she was too proud… too afraid to let them help. Pixie let out a long sigh. Had she really wanted to be bonded to him enough to subconsciously block out the bond long enough that it became permanent? Because distance didn't make any difference beyond the sense becoming vague. Once the bonded were close enough to each other, they could reach the other's thoughts to a degree, but no matter how far apart they were, there was always a general sense of the other's emotions. She also couldn't have been too weak to not feel it, because energy had nothing to do with the bond. She let out another long sigh.

"Bonded to a hyper-active twelve year old twerp," she groaned, bringing her hands to her temples and beginning to massage them. "I'm already starting to get a headache."

  


"Jeeze," said Genki, rubbing at his temples, "I've sure got a headache all of a sudden." Tiger glanced at him.

"With the amount of bouncing about you do, it's a wonder that you don't get them more often," he said dryly. Genki gave him a flat look, and then frowned.

"It's kinda weird though, like it's not really my headache," he said, before shrugging. "Now it's gone. Odd." 

Tiger looked at him again, and without missing a beat, said, "Probably all in your head." Genki laughed at that, and Tiger smirked. "Are we still going in the right direction?"

"Yeah, we're not very far away now," he said, without even slowing. Tiger only nodded, and remained silent. That was the fourth time that he'd asked, and Genki had only actually checked the stone once. Tiger was sure that if he asked Genki to look at the stone, it would point straight ahead, just as it had earlier when he'd mentioned it. There was something different about Genki since they'd woken that he couldn't put his paw on. Something in his scent, a jumble of emotions that didn't seem to be his. Tiger didn't understand how that could be - a person's scent was their scent, and that was that - but Tiger had the feeling that it had something to do with how the boy suddenly seemed to know exactly where Pixie was, without the stone's help. What he did know was that that second scent got stronger with each step, and that it was female - and, at the moment, both irritated and somewhat amused.

The simple fact was that the second scent was female was what had his suspicions up, as he tried to remember every scrap about the pixie that he could. Unfortunately, he knew that he'd been on the wrong continent; there had been no pixie unlocked there, only the occasional few that came through before Moo's reign had begun. But he was certain that he'd heard something… Something that had to do with a pixie's most powerful spells and attacks, and their trainers… It was just out of reach. Frowning, he set it aside to think about later. If nothing else, he could ask Pixie about it when they found them.

"Hey, look!" said Genki, pointing. Tiger glanced ahead, and saw what he was talking about. A large cave, laying open on the bluff wall. Off to one side was a small stack of wood for a fire. Tiger nodded, looking at Genki.

"What does the stone say?" he asked. Genki fished the pendant out; it was suffused with the red glow that it usually had when they were all but on top of a Magic Disk that it had led them to. Tiger nodded again, and asked, "Do you still have one of those torches from when we went through that cave and fought Joker?" Genki nodded, shrugging off his backpack.

"Yeah, but nothing to light it with," he said. Tiger nodded at the stone wall nearby.

"Hold it next to the stone," he said, lifting his paw and extending his claws. Genki grinned.

"I get it - you'll try to strike some sparks," he said.

"Bingo." Genki did as Tiger had directed, and he scraped his claws across the wall. A shower of sparks rained down, and a couple of them caught onto the torch, making it burst into flame. Genki grinned again.

"Cool! Ok, let's go," he said, turning and moving to the cave entrance. Just before he was about to follow, Tiger caught a taste of another, faint scent, and glanced in the direction that it seemed to lead - straight into the wall. Tiger blinked, and looked up, but all that he could see was the bluff, rising almost straight up above him. "Tiger, come on, you aren't going to be able to keep me out of trouble out there," called Genki. With a final frown, he trotted over to the cave; as soon as he stepped near, he could smell Pixie's scent, though it was at least a day old.

"She's definitely been here," he told Genki. "Her scent is all over the place." They moved into the cave, and torch's flickering light illuminating the passage.

"It's big enough for Big Blue to walk through," said Genki. Tiger nodded.

"Yeah, not what I would have expected from Pixie. An entrance this big would be tough to defend, even for the two of them," he said, looking around.

"You know what, though? I'll bet that they chose it for just that reason. Nobody would have expected them to hide somewhere so obvious," pointed out Genki. Tiger gave him an approving look.

"You're learning. 'Sometimes the obvious isn't.' Maybe I'm not wasting my time on you after all," he said. Genki grinned in appreciation of the rare compliment. Around them, the passage abruptly widened, into a large chamber, big enough that the torchlight didn't illuminate the whole cave even for Tiger's eyes. Looking around, he saw what looked like the remains of a firepit, the embers dead for awhile; not far away from that was some disarranged bedding, and scattered through the cave was some small, seemingly random clutter. He frowned; it was a little messy, for someone as methodical as Pixie usually was. He trotted over to the bedding, sniffing; her scent was heavy on it, but again, the freshest of it seemed to be at least a day old. "This is definitely where they were staying, Genki, but I don't think that they're here anymore. This fire has been out for at least a day, and the freshest scent that I can find is more than a day old, too."

There was no response from the boy. "Genki?" Tiger looked over to see him staring at something his body blocked from view. Frowning, Tiger moved toward him. "Hey, didn't you hear me?" he asked. Slowly, Genki pointed ahead, still silent. Tiger turned in the indicated direction, and felt his throat abruptly tighten, as he too saw what had silenced Genki. There, just at the edge of the torchlight, were a pair of Lost Disks, supported by the strange, half dead, half alive branches that marked out a Lost Disk from a locked one. Suddenly, the disarrayed bedding, the random seeming clutter fell into place. They had been sleeping, and somebody had surprised them, cornered them…

They were too late.

"She can't be gone," mumbled Genki softly, almost too low for even Tiger to hear him. "I can feel her…" Tiger slowly looked at him, frowning slightly.

"What do you mean, Genki?" he asked quietly.

"The… Magic Stone. I think that it did something to me, when I asked it to find her - I can feel her, in the back of my mind. I know that she's still alive…" he said. Tiger slowly nodded, and then frowned again, at the Lost Disks. He moved closer, inspecting them, and then blinked.

"Genki, bring that torch over here," he said. Slowly, with confusion on his face, Genki did so. Tiger looked at the disks again; there was no mistaking it. There was a small notch, like a piece had broken off, on the nearer one. "Hey, I don't think that this is real Lost Disk!" he said, in surprise. Genki started, and then stared at him.

"What?" he asked. Suddenly, Pixie and Big Blue's final minutes took on a new light, and slowly, Tiger started to laugh.

"Look," he said, grabbing the nearest one in his jaws, and pulling it off the branches. He dropped it on the ground, and then raked his claws across it, leaving long, splintered wooden furrows across its face. "It's a fake. Disks can't be damaged, not by a simple clawing, Genki. This is just a carved imitation."

"But why…" started Genki, and then paused, before suddenly grinning, and looking around. "Of course - what better way to get away then to die?" he said. Tiger nodded, smirking.

"Right - maybe they thought Gray Wolf's pack was closing in, and left these here to trick them into thinking that they were already Lost. And if the Magic Stone says we're close -"

"Then they must be hiding somewhere they can watch this cave," finished Genki. Tiger nodded again.

"And I think I know where, too, or at least where to look."

  


Genki followed Tiger, as the wolf-like monster led him back out of the cave, and looked around a moment. "There it is. Almost missed it this time, she must have only done this once," he muttered to himself.

"Done what, Tiger?" he asked. Tiger glanced at him.

"Climbed this wall. Her scent was too weak to recognize the first time I caught it, but it leads right to this - there must be another cave up there, hidden from view," he said, as he looked back up, frowning slightly. Genki looked up too.

"I should be able to climb it without much trouble, but will you be able to?" he asked. Tiger smirked, and lay a paw on the wall. His claws slid out of their sheaths, and into the stone itself. He looked at Genki, as he started to walk straight up the wall.

"I'll have less trouble than you," he said dryly. Genki grinned, as he looked at the wall, and started up as well. They made their way upward, Tiger pausing now and then to use his claws to cut Genki a hand hold. The higher that they got, the more clear the strange knot of emotions that he could feel in the back of his head got. Now that he'd thought about it, he realized that he should have known the Disks were fakes - he could sense her above and to his left. For a moment, Genki frowned, and wondered why the stone had done this to him, instead of just leading him to her. But then, this was probably the first time the stone had been used to locate a single monster - maybe this was normal. Maybe-

-Genki.-

The thought was so sudden, so clear, so… not his own that for a moment, he froze, staring ahead, forgetting to secure his foothold. With a yelp of surprise, he found himself suddenly hanging by his finger nails. For a moment, he scrambled his feet to try and catch back on, and then Tiger was stretching down to catch his backpack in his jaws.

"There are better ways to make an impression than by falling to the ground," he said around the reinforced strap. He pulled Genki up far enough that he found his foothold again. He laughed weakly, as his heart settled back into his chest.

"I'll… try to keep that in mind," he said after a moment. "Thanks, Tiger. I owe you one." Tiger nodded.

"What prompted you to try out your Suezo impersonation?" he asked dryly.

"Pixie - I heard her say my name, but it was a thought, not a voice. It startled me," said Genki. Tiger blinked at him.

"In your head?" he asked. Genki nodded. Tiger blinked again, and frowned. "Try saying her name - err, thinking her name," he said after a moment. Genki blinked, but slowly nodded. It couldn't hurt to at least try, he supposed.

-Pixie?- he thought slowly. A heartbeat passed, and then…

-Genki,- came a relieved thought. -For a moment, I thought I'd startled you right off the wall.- Blinking, he stared at Tiger.

-How are we talking like this?- he asked. He got a mental impression of a sigh from her.

-I'll… explain everything once you get up here. You don't have much farther to go. Look up.- Genki did, and saw Big Blue leaning out from what seemed to be thin air. Slowly, he looked back at Tiger.

"This just keeps getting weirder."

  


"There's the village," said Hare, shading his eyes and peering into the distance. Suezo hopped up on Golem's shoulder and squinted.

"See anything?" asked Holly.

"Looks like… nobody is there - wait. There they are, I can see somebody through a window. Looks like they're tied up," he said.

"Any sign of the monsters?" asked Hare. Suezo shook his head.

"Not that I can see," he said, jumping down. Hare turned to Claira.

"You're sure that you can't tell me anything else about them?" he asked her gently. The little girl shook her head.

"Uh-uh. All I remember was that they seemed to change shape, and they made a squishy sound when they moved, like shoes do when they've got water in them," she said. Hare nodded, and sighed.

"Probably they're some kind of Jell of Clay," he said, looking at Holly. "We gotta remember, we're down two fighters today, so watch out." They nodded, and Holly sighed.

"I wonder how Genki and Tiger are doing?" she said.

"By now, they've probably reached the bluffs. Who knows, maybe they've already helped Pixie and Big Blue, and are on their way back," said Hare. Claira blinked.

"Pixie and Big Blue? But, they're Baddies! Why help them!" she asked in surprise. Holly shook her head.

"Not anymore. When we defeated them, they decided to leave Moo. They're Goodies now, too. Well, sorta, anyway…" she said, smiling. "They've helped us out a couple of times. Genki had… a bad dream that made him worry about them, so he decided to see if they needed help, and Tiger went with so that he wouldn't be alone." Slowly, Claira nodded.

"And that's why they went to the bluffs? Because Pixie and Big Blue are there?" she asked. Holly nodded again.

"That's where the magic stone said they were," she replied.

"Oh," said Claira. "Magic Stone? What's that, can I see it?"

"Well, I loaned it to Genki so that it'd be easier for him to find Pixie and Big Blue, so I don't have it right now, but it's an ancient stone that my village protected for centuries. It helps us find Mystery Disks, or the way to go," she said. And what else can it do, she wondered briefly. We already know, thanks to Moo, that it can show an image of a location, and track both Moo and the Phoenix's ancient bodies. And now, apparently, it can track individual monsters, and lock onto them… Or do its abilities change with who uses it? Is that why I couldn't find Pixie, and Genki could?

They traveled toward the village quietly, watchful for the monsters that had trapped Claira's family. Luckily, it seemed that they weren't really patrolling the area - probably, they weren't expecting to find anybody else. That certainly fit in with what she knew about Jells. Tough to hurt, but not exactly sticklers for being thorough. Beside her, Holly noticed that Claira seemed to be getting more and more nervous the closer that they got to the village. She couldn't blame her - after all, this was where her family had been captured.

"That's a really pretty dress, Claira," she said after a moment. Claira blinked at her.

"Huh?"

"Your dress - I like it. It is very pretty. Did your mother make it for you?" she asked gently. It really was a nice dress. It was made of blue material, a little faded from use, but with a bit of flowering embroidery on the hem. Claira smiled, blushing a little.

"Oh… Thank you. My mother used to be a seamstress, before… you know," she said, slowly. Holly smiled.

"I've never really had any luck with needle and thread," she said. "The one time that I tried sewing, I managed to sew my thumb to the fabric." Claira giggled and winced at the same time.

"Gee, that must have hurt!" she said. Holly grinned.

"A little. After that, I decided to leave the sewing to my mother," she said. Claira giggled again. At least now she's relaxed, Holly thought to herself.

"Alright everybody. Suezo said the building he saw somebody in was in the center of town. Ready?" asked Hare. They all nodded. Holly took Claira's hand.

"Stay with Golem and me if a fight starts, alright?" she told her. Claira nodded.

"Ok, here we go," said Hare, once they were all set. Slowly, they made their way into town. Holly looked around herself a little sadly. Once, this village would have been full of people, much like her own. Over there, in that square, there might have been children playing, or over there, near the fountain she could see, a family might have had a picnic. So much like her own village, before Naga and his troops had destroyed it. How many innocent children had lived here, before Moo… before her father had come? Now, many of the buildings were run down, cracked, some partly caved in. The cobble-stone street was badly damaged, and the fountain that must have once sprayed water into the pool around it was so eroded it was difficult to tell it had once been a pixie. Holly paused, blinking. The horns were missing, and a wing had broken off, but the face was still in surprisingly good shape; it almost looked familiar.

"That statue… looks like Pixie," said Golem suddenly, startling her. She blinked, and looked at it again.

"Yeah, actually. But she's older, and her hair is longer than Pixie's… Who knows, maybe she was a relative of Pixie's?" she suggested. Hare shrugged.

"Maybe," he said. "We aren't far from the center of town now, heads up." She nodded, giving Claira's hand a reassuring squeeze and getting one in return. They turned a corner, and there it was. Unlike most of the other buildings, it still appeared to be fully intact, with only a minor bit of wind and water damage at the corners and edges. One huge window seemed to make up the front of the building; a couple of panes had cracks, and one was broken out entirely, but on the whole it was in surprisingly good condition. There was one large glass door, just barely big enough for even Golem to duck under.

"It must have been the town hall, once," said Holly. They made their way toward it; slowly, Hare pushed the door open. Inside, the floor was covered in dust, but in the center of the single, large room…

"Mama! Papa!" Claira slipped her hand out of Holly's, and ran over to the two adults in the middle of the room. After looking around for a moment, Hare followed her in, and then came Holly, with Moochi, Suezo and Golem behind her.

"Claira!"

"We hoped you'd gotten away, but why did you come back?" Aside from Claira and her parents, the room was empty; no guards or anything. The hairs on the back of Holly's neck started prickling.

"Not even Jells are this sloppy," said Hare, at the same time she asked, "No guards?" They looked at each other, as Golem ducked under the doorway and stepped in. Holly looked down at the floor.

"If they're in the center of the room, Hare, then-"

"How is the only set of tracks in the dust ours and Claira's?" he finished grimly. Slowly, they crossed to Claira and her parents. Holly reached out to touch the girl's shoulder.

Quite abruptly, Claira, her parents, and the entire building shivered, and then began to melt. That was the only way Holly could describe it, as what had been Claira a moment before stretched out and wrapped around Holly, immobilizing her. Although she couldn't turn, she could tell from the sounds of struggle behind her that the others had been caught too. The building finished changing, and a small blob dropped down before her. It quivered for a moment, and then stretched and grew until Holly was looking at a cruelly smirking copy of herself.

"So much for the mighty Searchers. After hearing that you beat Centaur and Gali, I thought you'd be harder to catch than this," she said, before frowning. "Although I had thought there were seven of you…" The one holding her writhed for a moment, and then Claira's head appeared, supported by an impossibly long neck.

"They boy and Gray Wolf's brother went to the bluffs to find Pixie, Captain. She said that some stone told them she was there," she said. The double smirked.

"Ah, the famous Magic Stone… So that's why she doesn't have it," she replied, nodding.

"What are you?" demanded Holly. Her double smirked again.

"Don't you know a doppelganger when you see one, Holly?" she asked, her smirk widening. "Oh, don't be surprised. I know everything about you, now. That little village… Your father being driven out… everything." Not everything, Holly thought to herself. She didn't know that Genki and Tiger had gone until Claira had told her, and Claira had only known because Holly had just told her. The doppelganger captain looked at Claira.

"Gone to help Pixie, huh? We'd score big with Master Moo if we took her and Big Blue down with the Searchers," she said, before her form shivered suddenly. Holly couldn't help but wince as she saw her own face become bruised and bloody, her clothes torn. "Genki, Tiger, we were ambushed, I managed to escape, but the others… oh, boo-hoo…" she laughed. Then she smirked. "Watch them… I'll take care of this myself."

"Yes Captain!"

  


Genki squirmed as Big Blue set him down with a frown, and then reached back down to get Tiger. The wolf-like monster gave him a disdainful look, and walked the rest of the way up the wall to the little ledge that had been hidden from view from below. Genki looked up at the golem, and grinned. "Thanks," he said. Big Blue gave him a short nod.

"Master Pixie is inside," he told him, before looking at Tiger. "A moment, Tiger of the Wind. I would speak with you about Gray Wolf," he said. Tiger blinked.

"About what?" he asked suspiciously. The golem frowned, and Genki looked at Tiger.

"Tiger… I think that he's trying to say Pixie wants to talk to me alone for a few minutes," he said. Tiger frowned at Genki for a moment, and then sighed, looking at Big Blue.

"I suppose I can manage to talk for a bit," he muttered. Genki nodded.

"Thanks, Tiger," he said quietly, before heading down into the cave. His eyes adjusted to the darkness surprisingly quickly; he had no trouble seeing in the dim light from the entrance, and saw the flickering of a campfire from around a corner ahead of him. He made his way down to it, and as soon as he got around the corner, he saw her.

Pixie was frowning down at the fire, but even as he saw her, she said, "Hello Genki," in an oddly subdued tone. The packet of emotions that he'd started to associate with her was… resigned, but at the same time, it seemed a little excited. "We've… got a lot to talk about," she told him awkwardly, but finally looking up at him with a slight smile.

"Pixie," he blurted out, "I'm sorry, I think that the Magic Stone may have done something to us when I asked it to find you." To his surprise, she just started laughing. "Pixie?" he asked uncertainly. He'd never heard her just laugh, not like this. She'd laughed before, of course, but that laugh had been a cruel, bitter laugh, one flung at him almost like an attack. This laugh was just… her. A slightly throaty, relaxed, good-natured laugh. And in the back of his head, he could feel that same amusement… pulsing in time with her laughter.

After a few moments, she shook her head, and her laughter faded, though a bit of a grin did remain on her lips. "The Magic Stone… Genki, sometimes I forget that no matter how mature you may act most of the time, you really are just a kid," she said, wryly. Shaking her head again, she continued. "It wasn't the Magic Stone that did this, although I could almost wish that it had. This is… something much different than what the stone does. Would you sit down? I don't intend to get a crick in my neck talking to you," she said. Blinking, Genki slowly sat on the ground, looking at her.

"If it wasn't the stone, then how… what…?" He trailed off, for once at a loss for words. Pixie shifted slightly, so that she was looking more directly at him, and frowned, her gray eyes thoughtful.

"My kind - pixie - have something of a disability. Though we have very powerful magic, we can't use much of it, not normally," she began.

"But that lightning attack! And that fire wall… and what about the shield and attack you used against the Scaled Jells?" he interrupted. Pixie shook her head.

"That lightning attack, and that fire wall are children's attacks; all pixie can do them. Mine are powerful through sheer repetition; I've used them thousands of times. I could cast them in my sleep! But, the spell I used to block the Jells with, and the spell that I used to blast them are much more advanced spells. A pixie alone can't cast them, because they take too much power - unless a certain condition is met, just trying would have killed me," she said.

"Yeah, I remember how tired you were after," he said slowly, and then blinked. "But wait, if just trying would have killed you, then…"

"Pixie have another… ability, although in some ways it too is a disadvantage. In order to use the strongest attacks and magics, we must…" She paused a moment, frowning. "…link ourselves to a human. Bond them, so to speak, and it was known as the Bonding," she said, the capital B clear in her voice. "Once that happens, both the pixie and human gain a number of benefits. If they are close enough to each other, they heal faster; share energy; can go longer without sleep or food. The human gains an ability to see far better in the dark than one not bonded; the pixie the ability to use those more advanced magics and attacks." She paused, and then looked at him. "They also… gain a sense of the other. Which direction their bonded is in, how far, what they are feeling; if they're near enough to each other, a limited ability to read the other's mind and… speak telepathically," she finished quietly. Speak telepathically…

"Like… you did while Tiger and I were climbing up here," he said, his eyes widening in understanding. Pixie nodded. "But… when did this happen? How?"

"Usually in order to bond, both the pixie and the human have to make a conscious, spoken choice to bond. But sometimes… very rarely, and under certain extreme circumstances, the bond has been known to form by itself. Both still would have had to have been willing in the first place, but the conscious choice doesn't have to be made," she said.

"The Scaled Jells - that super ray they fired at us. That's what did it, right?" he asked. Pixie nodded.

"Rather, it was me starting to cast the shield spell - I think." He blinked, as she blushed slightly. "It may have formed even a little before that; the simple truth is that I'm not entirely certain, because whenever it formed, I seem to have blocked it out. That's why neither of us felt it before now." She paused, and then sighed. "It's… also too late to break it. The bond would have become permanent about a month ago now. The only way to close it off now permanently - there are ways to close it away for short periods - would be if one of us died," she said. Genki nodded slowly.

"So, in other words, we're kinda stuck with each other now," he said. Pixie nodded.

"In simple terms, that about covers it," she replied. Genki thought about all she had told him for a moment, and then, slowly, grinned.

"I guess that means that now, your really are a part of our team, doesn't it?" he said. Pixie blinked, and stared at him in surprise.

"That's it? No questions? No complaints about being bonded?" she asked. Genki shook his head, and gave her a solemn look.

"Look… you said that, even without us both saying we wanted to be bonded, we still would have had to agree to be bonded to each other normally, right?" he asked. She nodded slowly. "So, that means you would have had to agree too, and I know that I would have agreed if you had suggested it - not to get away from the Jells, but because you're a friend. So, if we both would have chosen to bond, and we can't change it now, why not make the most of it?" he said, before grinning. "Besides, I'm already kinda getting used to feeling you back there. Actually, I'm kinda surprised that you aren't angry about it," he told her. She gave him a flat look.

"Who says that I'm not?" she asked blandly, but that little packet of her in the back of his head was actually a little relieved. Genki tapped his head, grinning.

"You do," he said. "Actually, I do have one question, now that I think about it," he said. She looked at him.

"What, Genki?"

"Now that you and I are bonded, are you and Big Blue finally going to join the rest of us? We really could use your help," he said. Pixie looked at him a moment, but then slowly shook her head.

"I don't know Genki. I promised you that we would someday, but I just don't know if it's time yet," she said quietly. He nodded, and they were quiet for a moment, her sense… regretful. Then, "Speaking of the others, where are they?" she asked him.

"Oh! Man, I almost forgot why I came here in the first place," he said. He told her about the dream that he'd had; the Magic Stone pointing to her; running into Claira and splitting up, Genki and Tiger looking for her, and the others going with Claira.

"Something dark circling me?" she said, raising her eyebrows. He nodded.

"Yeah… The closer that it got, the weaker that you looked," he said. Pixie frowned a moment, and then shrugged, her sense unworried.

"It might have just been the bond finally starting to manifest itself. I remember a lot of bonded humans talking about getting a dream not long after first bonding that seemed to indicate their pixie being in danger, or if they were separated for long periods of time." She paused, gray eyes turning a little distant. "My grandmother thought that it might have something to do with the way we - pixie - usually have to sleep more, and take longer to heal when the one we're bonded to is a long way away." She stretched out a wing to illustrate her point. Though they were in far better condition than they had been when he'd last seen her, they still looked like they had a ways to go. "By now, I might be able to glide, when I should be able to fly already. On the other hand, now that you're here, given a couple days they should be fully healed again."

"I'm glad, Pixie," he said. She nodded slightly, and then tapped her own head.

"I know."

  


Tiger glanced up idly from where he was laying, curled up by the fire, as Genki abruptly laughed at something. Not far away, Pixie's lips were twitching as though she were fighting off a laugh of her own. He looked over at Big Blue; the golem just shrugged at him, understanding as much as he did. Tiger sighed. In hindsight, it should have been fairly obvious what had happened. The extra scent - which he'd finally recognized as Pixie's, how Genki had known where she was without looking at the stone. Now that he could actually see Pixie, he could smell Genki's scent rolling off her in much the same way that her scent was coming off Genki. It was… odd, to say the least.

Since their arrival two mornings before, Genki and Pixie had had their heads together most of the time, speaking softly enough that Tiger only caught occasional snippets of what they were saying. Not that he understood most of what he did hear, but then, he didn't particularly care for the idea of being bound to somebody for the rest of his life, either. Still, he supposed it would have its advantages, especially for Genki. Faster healing, didn't need as much sleep… Tiger smirked slightly. Come to think about it, that wasn't much of a change.

"Were you two planning on letting us in on the joke?" he asked dryly. Genki and Pixie glanced at each other, and Pixie shrugged, grinning slightly.

"It was just an offhand thought about tricks and old dogs," said Genki. Tiger favored him with a scowl as they both chuckled.

"Next time, I won't ask," he muttered. He'd noticed a bit of a change in Pixie; she was… a bit more outgoing than she had been, although still not exactly a socialite. He blinked suddenly. More outgoing - more like Genki. And Genki had had a distance, a seriousness about him since the Jell attack - as Pixie had been. Shaking his head, Tiger grinned slightly. Again, in hindsight, it should have been obvious. A slight mixing of personalities, and in this case, for the better. Pixie not quite as withdrawn, and Genki a bit more serious. Maybe there was something to this bonding after all.

Yawning, Tiger shifted slightly, so that the fire warmed his other side. "Well, one of your quips beats one of Hare's any day," he said. Genki and Pixie glanced at each other again, and Genki grinned. Tiger decided to take his own advice, and didn't ask.

"Speaking of Hare, I wonder how he and the others are doing. You suppose that they've gotten Claira family free yet?" asked Genki.

"They should have reached the town by now. As long as Holly didn't let Hare do the planning, they're probably just waiting for us to arrive," answered Tiger.

"The family was caught in the town?" asked Big Blue, glancing at Pixie.

"Yeah, that's what Claira told us," said Genki.

"That town is a ruin. It's a wonder they survived to be captured," said Pixie quietly. Tiger looked at her, frowning. Sadness was rolling off her scent, and loneliness. "It has been for nearly two hundred years." Tiger blinked. How would she…? Genki beat him to the obvious.

"That's where you were unlocked, isn't it?" he said, and Pixie laughed, just a touch of bitterness in the sound.

"Born, Genki, born. Not all monsters around today were unlocked from Mystery Disks. Myself, my parents, their parents, and their parents before them were all born in that little burg." She abruptly grinned slightly. "You didn't realize that, did you? That we could be born just like humans." She shook her head. "I suppose that I should try to remember that you aren't from this world, and don't have monsters in yours."

"I think I understand something better now," he said, after a moment, and Pixie nodded. "Wait a minute - if you lived in that town before it was a ruin, and you said that it has been like that for nearly two hundred years… Just how old are you, Pixie?" he asked. Tiger groaned in spite of himself.

"Don't you know there are two questions you never ask a woman kid?" he muttered under his breath. Pixie just started laughing - so did Big Blue, to Tiger's surprise. Genki frowned.

"Hey, what did I say that's so funny?" he asked, looking around at them. After a moment, Pixie shook her head.

"You humans, so rooted in your idea of time and age… Depending on how you look at it, I'm younger than you are, Genki," she said, finally. "I'm two hundred and forty-three, but that's about the same as saying eight, because of our natural lifespan." He stared at her.

"But… But… You look like you're eighteen! Not even that, you look like-"

"-I'm not much older than you," she finished, nodding. "Appearances can be deceiving. I'd never have thought a twelve year old kid would have had the guts to punch me because I broke a promise," she pointed out, touching her left cheek lightly. Genki winced in spite of himself.

"I did apologize for that," he grumbled. Pixie nodded.

"Something else that I wouldn't have credited to a kid - or most monsters, for that matter," she said dryly. "In any case…" Abruptly, she paused, cocking her head. Genki turned slightly too, frowning. Listening for something. Tiger lifted his head; his hearing was better than theirs. For a moment, there was nothing but the crackling of the fire, and then…

"Tiger! Gen… Genki!" It was distant, but he was on his feet as soon as he heard it.

"That's Holly!" he said, turning toward the exit. Big Blue rose as well.

"I will check it out, Tiger," he said, before walking out. The heavy sounds of his footsteps faded quickly. For a moment, Tiger was about to go after him, but he knew that Big Blue was probably safer alone - with his coloring, he should be nearly invisible from below. He heard her call again; closer this time. Then a moment later, Big Blue called back, "Master Pixie, Genki, Tiger, come quickly, she is badly injured." Eyes widening, Tiger looked at Genki, and then dashed out of the cave and down the wall. He saw her right away; stumbling in their general direction. Her dress was torn, and a ribbon of blood ran down the side of her face. He ran to her; she collapsed over him as he reached her side.

"Holly!" came Genki's shout from the ledge above.

"Tiger… reached town… ambushed… made it away… but others…" She trailed off into ragged tears.

"Just hang in there, Holly," he said, carrying her toward the cliff wall, where Big Blue was climbing down. As he reached it, Big Blue stretched down and gently lifted her limp form to his shoulder, before climbing back up. Tiger followed him a bit more slowly. As the golem had picked her up, he'd gotten a good taste of her scent, and something about it seemed wrong. There was something… missing in it. It was Holly, but… They reached the ledge, and Big Blue carefully set her down. Pixie knelt beside Holly, frowning.

"There's something strange about these wounds," she said, just loud enough that Tiger could hear her. Holly moaned in pain, as Pixie began to cast a healing spell. Something strange about the wounds… Frowning, Tiger sniffed at her again. The sent was Holly's… frightened, saddened, disoriented… but not in pain or injured. He growled deep in his throat, using a paw to break Pixie's spell off.

"That's not Holly," he said, scowling.

"What are you talking about Tiger, of course it's Holly, who else could it be!" exclaimed Genki. Tiger glanced at him.

"Her scent is Holly's, but it's not injured. This isn't Holly," he said. Genki opened his mouth to argue again, but then blinked at Pixie. 

"Are you sure?" he asked. She nodded, as Tiger frowned.

"Who are you?" he growled, at Holly's double. She stopped moaning, and opening her eyes, smiled evilly. That expression was so wrong on Holly's face that he almost attacked right then, but Genki lightly touched his shoulder.

"Me?" she asked, her voice twisting just slightly from the real Holly's gentle tones. "I'm anybody I want to be!" she finished, before her form suddenly writhed, twisting, changing and growing. Pixie scowled, jumping back.

"Doppelganger!" she hissed, raising her hands to cast a spell. The doppelganger swung out a huge arm, knocking her aside to bounce off the wall. Tiger froze, recognizing who the doppelganger was changing into.

"More than just a normal Doppelganger," he boomed, with a sinister laugh. "I have sampled the Master himself."

  


Genki stared in disbelief, as what had been Holly grew, and became Moo. Pixie raised her hands to cast a spell, and he contemptuously swatted her away. Genki staggered, catching a backwash of pain through the bond as she was hit and then again, as she bounced off the stone wall to land in a heap on the ground. Big Blue bellowed, and grabbed the doppelganger, attempting to crush him; Genki recovered from the phantom hits and charged him, jumping up to attack. The doppelganger twisted, lifting Big Blue's enormous weight behind him, and Genki ended up bouncing harmlessly off the golem's back.

Bellowing again, Big Blue set his feet, and strained with all his might. Slowly, the Moo doppelganger was lifted from the ground, though he struggled against it. There was a sound of stone under enough stress to shatter it, and then with an abrupt heave the golem had raised the doppelganger over his head. Turning deliberately, Big Blue shifted and moved to toss him off the ledge. Before he could, though, the doppelganger morphed again, flowing down the golem's arms to the ground. Caught off guard by the sudden change of weight, he lost his balance and fell forward landing with a crash just short of going off the ledge. The doppelganger began to turn back into Moo.

"Blizzard!" Tiger's ice attack slammed into the half-formed doppelganger, freezing it solid. After a moment, though, a crack appeared in the ice. Genki tensed, ready to attack, but before he could a fireball crashed into it. The doppelganger was blasted back into the rock wall.

"Let's see how you like getting slammed into a wall," growled Pixie, as she limped over to Genki.

"Are you alright, Pixie?" he asked. She nodded slightly, keeping her eyes on the staggered doppelganger.

"I twisted my ankle again, but I'll live," she said, as the doppelganger shook off the hit and slowly began to reform into a panting double of Pixie. Pixie raised her hands, spell energy crackling into life. "Had enough?" The doppelganger took a few more breaths, before snarling suddenly.

"If I can't capture you, then I'll kill you all right here, my troops know enough to take Holly and the others to Master Moo!" she yelled, as she raised her own hands and laughed. "DIE!"

In the back of his mind, Genki registered Pixie's shock and surprise at the same time the doppelganger began to cast the spell that she had used against the Scaled Jells. Tiger launched a torpedo attack at her, but the doppelganger just let it hit her, laughing even as she fell, finishing the spell. For a split second, he saw the energy gather into a glowing silver-teal ball as it had when Pixie had cast it. Then Pixie, standing beside him, shoved him hard enough that he went off the cliff, only just barely managing to grab onto a vine before he fell too far. The cliff face jumped like a struck bell, as above him the spell went off, and it was all he could do to hold onto the vine.

Quite abruptly, his sense of Pixie was severed.

The cliff stopped trembling, and the light faded away above him. Stomach twisting into knots, Genki scrambled to find some steadier hand and footholds, and climbed back up as quickly as he could to the ledge. Hoping against hope that he wouldn't find what he was certain he would. Praying that it would be different. 

If the sudden severing of his bond to Pixie hadn't been proof enough, then the four Lost Disks he found, as he pulled himself up and over the edge, could leave no doubt.

Genki stared at them numbly for a moment, mechanically reaching out and touching the Disk that stood where Pixie had stood, where he himself had stood only moments before… Before Pixie had pushed him off. An eerie sense of déjà vu came to him, as he remembered only two days before, when he and Tiger had found the fake disks. This time, he knew, there would be no Tiger to show him that they were only wood, not real.

Tiger was one of the Lost Disks, this time.

"No… It's not fair," he mumbled softly. Tiger, Lost. Big Blue, Lost. Pixie… His heart wrenched, as he shouted, "It's not fair!" His knees suddenly buckled under him, and he felt his eyes start to water, as he punched at the ground. "This isn't right, it's not the way that it should be." Genki looked up at Pixie's disk again, and lightly touched it. "It's my fault," he said softly, as his tears slowly began to fall, staining the stone. "It's my fault, not hers!" he shouted, and then finished in a hoarse whisper, "Somebody help me, please…"

Under his shirt, the Magic Stone stirred.

  


Holly sighed in frustration, and looked around at her companions. Two of the doppelgangers had reformed into one big cage for them while the other two stood guard. At least they could move about, though; it was a small comfort. Slightly better was the fact that it turned out there was a real Claira, and that she and her parents were alive. The doppelgangers couldn't copy somebody that wasn't alive, apparently. She sighed, and looked toward the line of bluffs that was just barely visible in the distance. "Genki, Tiger, please… Don't believe her when she says that she's me…" Have came over, and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"They'll be alright Holly. You know those two," he said quietly. Holly nodded sadly.

"I wonder if this is why the stone wanted to go with them, if it knew that we were going to be captured," she said. Hare frowned a moment.

"I don't know, Holly. Maybe it did - we've never really split up like this before, have we?" he said. "Actually, I've been putting some thought into why Genki was able to use it. I think I may have figured out part of it, at least," he told her. She looked at him.

"Yeah?"

"I think it may have something to do with what everybody keeps saying about it. Golem, Tiger, Centaur, Falcon, even Pixie. All of them, at one point or another, have said he ha clear eyes," he said. Holly nodded slowly.

"Yeah, I know. It's kinda strange," she said. Hare nodded.

"Well, I got to thinking… Just what do clear eyes imply? One obvious one is an unclouded soul, and another might be purity of heart," he said, before frowning. "But I had another idea, too, one that isn't so obvious. Clear eyes imply innocence."

"Innocence?" asked Holly. Hare nodded.

"Yeah… Think about it. When it comes right down to it, how many times has Genki done something that somebody older - somebody that wasn't truly innocent anymore - probably wouldn't have done? Like when Pixie broke her promise to let her hostage go after we surrendered, and Genki hit her. You and I would never have done that, because we knew that she was probably lying, but Genki really believe that she'd let him go," he said. Holly nodded slowly.

"So the stone senses innocence? But then how could Moo have used it?" she countered. Hare shook his head.

"As strange as it may seem, in a way, he's innocent too… Moo was created to destroy, he never really had any other choice. It's all that he knows how to do," he said quietly. Holly blinked, and frowned in thought. As unsettling a thought as it was, it was true. Moo was… innocent. "Maybe the stone reacts to that innocence," he finished.

Before she could reply, the ground suddenly began to shake, jumping under her feet so suddenly that she stumbled into Hare. "Earthquake??" she exclaimed, as the earth jumped again, tolling like a bell, knocking them both down. A moment later, Golem's huge hand came down and scooped them up, holding them safely above ground. Slowly, the tremors began to fade away, but they hardly noticed it. Their eyes were turned to the line of bluffs visible in the distance.

A pillar of flames had appeared, shooting higher and higher into the sky, the base of it appearing to be rising from the bluffs. Holly's heart stopped, for a long moment, as she and Hare looked at each other. Genki! Tiger! The ground began to rumble again, although not as violently as before - to the contrary, it seemed almost to be resonating to something. Then suddenly Suezo gasped.

"It… can't be," he breathed, his single eye wide as it could go. Holly looked at him.

"What is it, Suezo? What do you see?" she asked. Suezo didn't answer her, only stared on in awed disbelief. 

"Look!" exclaimed Hare, pointing. Holly turned, and felt her own jaw drop.

Spreading its wings from the pillar of fire was the Phoenix.

  


Moo turned slowly, as he felt his ancient enemy awaken, and looked to the south, where he could feel her. "Has she found you? Have you awoken so soon, my 'old friend?' Has the time truly come again, now?" he laughed.

After a long moment, the sense of the Phoenix faded away, as though she had returned to sleep, and he turned back to his brooding. No, now was not yet the time for their final battle. They both still had pieces to play.

  


Pixie opened her eyes slowly, wondering why she felt so very strange, and looked around. Not far away Tiger was standing up, shaking his head as if confused, and Big Blue was frowning, looking down at his hands. She sat up carefully, shaking her own head and frowning. The last she could remember, she'd pushed Genki off the ledge, hoping that he'd catch... She paused, blinking, as she saw him laying beside her, the Magic Stone gripped tightly in his hand. He was breathing, though, and his sense was…

Pixie blinked again. She couldn't sense him. Even if he was unconscious, she should be able to feel something, but all she felt was emptiness - and to her surprise, a pang of loneliness. She was alone in her own mind again. But… that wasn't possible, unless one of them had died… In her mind, a few images played themselves back. She pushed Genki over the edge, and then the doppelganger's spell crashed into her… and then she'd woken up with this strange feeling and Genki out cold beside her, the bond apparently broken. After a long moment, she reached down and touched her ankle, expecting to jump at a burst of pain, but all she felt was the cool softness of her own skin. It had been healed, though she'd only twisted it a few moments before. Abruptly, she noticed that the sun was nearly to its setting point; hadn't it been just past noon, when they'd fought? She felt her mouth dry.

What had happened to them?

Genki stirred, and weakly looked up at her. Slowly, he smiled. "Pixie… You're… alright…" Then, he passed out again.

"Would somebody mind explaining to me what exactly just happened, and why I feel… like I'm younger than I was this morning?" asked Tiger slowly. She started, and stared at him. Like he's… younger? That strange feeling slowly began to focus, to make more sense. She felt… there seemed no other way of describing it. She felt… younger than she had before… before the spell had hit them, and they'd all blacked out. Or had they blacked out? Had something happened to them?

Had they become Lost Disks, and Genki and the stone had somehow brought them back? It would explain the breaking of the bond, and that strange, youthful feeling… After a long moment, she rose, picking up Genki as she did, and led Tiger and Big Blue back into the cave.

  


A few hours later, Genki slowly began to wake up, and looked around as if confused. Pixie glanced up at him in silence, otherwise remaining motionless. Tiger was asleep by the fire, and Big Blue at the entrance, keeping watch for any more Baddies. In her hand, the Magic Stone was cool, giving no indications that it was anything but the smooth, green stone it looked to be, but now, she had her suspicions. She didn't know what had happened that day, but she thought that she had a good idea. Pixie gave Genki a few more moments to wake up, as she thought about how strange it felt to not be able to feel him the back of her head. Maybe it had been for only a few days, but… She'd gotten used to it, odd as it felt to admit it. Finally though, she cleared her throat, and he turned to her, surprised and relief in his eyes.

"Pixie… you're alright! And Tiger - wait, where's-"

"Big Blue is up keeping watch, Genki," she told him, and he relaxed visibly. She lightly tossed the Magic Stone to him, and he blinked at her in surprise. "When we came to, you were out cold beside me, holding onto that like your life depended on it," she said. For a moment, he looked at her, eyes far off as he remembered.

"When I climbed back up after you pushed me off, I found four… Lost Disks," he said. She nodded slowly, as he confirmed part of what she'd already guessed. Then, for a time, they truly had been dead, or as good as. That was why the bond had broken.

"I thought that might have happened. The bond is gone," she said quietly. Genki blinked, and then nodded.

"That's why I feel so weird," he said. "I remember… feeling it being severed, now." He paused suddenly, frowning. "I can't remember what happened, after finding the Disks. It's just… a blank," he told her. Pixie looked at him a moment, and then shook her head. If she was right…

"It's not important, Genki. We're all alright, after all, aren't we?" she said. Whether she was right or not, the fewer that knew, the better, because even the suspicion would put him in far greater danger than he was in now. She grinned at him slightly. "Looks like your dream came true after all, and you got your chance to save Big Blue and I," she said, and silently added again. She paused, and then frowned. "But, if that doppelganger was copying Holly, then they've been captured. Your friends need help, now." Genki started.

"I've got to go help them!" he exclaimed, standing, and going over to Tiger. If she was lucky, he wouldn't put any thought into what had happened, now, just assume that the stone had exhibited another of its seemingly endless powers. Pixie stood, as Genki shook Tiger awake.

"Finally woke up, eh kid?" he said, as he stood up and stretched out. "It's about time." Genki grinned at Tiger.

"Like you weren't asleep just now, either," he said. Tiger smirked at him.

"Listen," said Pixie. "When doppelgangers copy somebody, they learn everything - and I do mean everything - about them, except what happened in the last two weeks or so."

"So if the ones holding Holly and the others try copying them, we'll know which is which by asking them about something that happened in the last couple weeks - like when we fought the Melcarba," said Genki, understanding. Pixie nodded.

"Right," she said. "We'd better get started, then, if you want to get there before they learn about that, too." Tiger and Genki both started, and stared at her.

"You're coming with us?" asked Genki in surprise. Pixie smiled slightly.

"You and Tiger alone can't free them all," she said, and then paused. "And… I wouldn't be much of a friend, if I didn't help," she finished, after a long moment. Funny… she thought to herself. I would have thought that would be a lot harder to say. Genki gave her a wide smile.

"Thanks, Pixie," he said. She nodded slightly.

"Yeah, well… If it comes down to a fight, if they get hit hard enough, they fall back into their natural form. When they're in that state, they can be frozen," she said. Tiger nodded.

"Between your magic and my attacks, we should be able to freeze them all; there can't be very many of them," he agreed. Genki grinned.

"Let's go!"

  


"Lightning!" Holly started, as their cage shuddered under the sudden attack and stared in surprise as Pixie swooped down, launching a volley of ball lightning. Staggered, the doppelgangers that had formed themselves into their cage began to lose their shape. A moment later, Big Blue, Tiger and Genki rushed out, Tiger and Big Blue each taking down one of the two guards. Taken by surprise, they didn't have time to react, and had to fall back. Their cage melted away, and laughing, they ran to Genki.

"Genki, Tiger! You're safe!" exclaimed Holly, as she reached him. Genki grinned.

"It'll take more than a doppelganger to slow us down, right Tiger?" he said, laughing. Pixie dropped lightly to the ground beside them, wings folding up as she did.

"Can the five of you fight?" she asked. Hare nodded, as the doppelgangers finally began to recover, and started to change. One grew into a twin of Golem, and immediately started toward them. The real Golem looked at Big Blue, and they nodded at each other; Big Blue moved to intercept the fake while Golem took up a protective stance over Claira and her family.

A second became a sneering Genki, and beside him another turned into Tiger. The last wavered for a moment, and then settled on Hare's form. Genki glanced at them, and said softly, "If we get mixed up, as a question about the Melcarba - they don't know what's happened to us in the past couple weeks." They nodded, as he skated forward to meet his twin, Hare and Tiger close on his heels.

The ground shuddered, as the two golem squared off. The fake frowned at Big Blue, and then started coming apart in preparation for a Tornado attack. Big Blue drew back with one huge fist, and then slammed it solidly into the fake's chest. Only half separated, the fake was thrown backwards, shivering as it flew and changing back into the jell-like state that seemed to be its natural form. Beside her, Pixie raised her hand as it started to reform.

"Freeze Arrow!" A sphere of icy blue energy formed, and then streaked toward the doppelganger. Striking it while it was only half-formed, the spell froze the doppelganger solid. Pixie nodded. "One down. They can't stand being frozen," she said. Holly nodded.

"Pixie… did you see the Phoenix yesterday, during that earthquake?" she asked. Pixie glanced at her, but shook her head.

"No. We were too busy trying to stay on our feet and fight off the Doppelganger Captain," she said, in a tone that made it clear that was the only answer Holly would get. After an awkward moment, Holly nodded, and turned back to the last three fights. I wonder what she knows, and why she doesn't want to talk about it? Could she know why the Phoenix appeared yesterday? Frowning, she made a mental note to ask Genki and Tiger after this was over.

As she thought of the two, one of the Tigers growled and then launched a Torpedo attack at the other. It slammed into him, and he was thrown back, bouncing off a partly crumbling wall and losing his shape for just a moment. Tiger roared, flinging a blizzard attack at the doppelganger, and the second was frozen. Not far away, Hare landed a solid shot on his double's jaw, and then followed that up with an uppercut, knocking him down. He struggled to get up a moment, and then flickered, melting down to jell-form. Pixie raised her hand, and froze it.

They turned to Genki and his double, who were rolling around on the ground, punching and kicking each other as best they could. How are we supposed to tell them apart? she asked herself. "Stop, both of you!" she shouted. "We've got you beat, there isn't any need for this!" After a moment, they separated, both bruised and breathing hard. The one nearer to her pointed.

"That's the fake, Holly!" he said. The other Genki sighed, and shook his head.

"Do you have any idea how pointless it is to do that? After all, I have proof that I'm the real Genki," he said, reaching into his shirt and grinning. "Because I'll bet you can't copy this!" he finished, pulling out the Magic Stone. The double stared, as he patted at his chest in alarm.

"How did you get that off me!" he exclaimed. Holly frowned. It was almost certainly proof that the nearer Genki was the fake, but with all the rolling around that they'd been doing… Apparently, Pixie had the same idea.

"Genki… why don't you tell us where you found Big Blue and I?" she asked, looking at him. The nearer Genki grinned abruptly, and nodded.

"Better ask the fake first, because I don't want him to get the right answer from me," he replied. The Genki with the stone frowned.

"I found you in your cave, at the bluffs," he replied. Tiger growled low in his throat, as the other Genki laughed.

"In the first cave Tiger and I checked, we found two Lost Disks, fakes, that Pixie and Big Blue had left to fool Moo's troops into thinking that they were dead if they came looking for her. But Tiger realized that they were fakes, and followed Pixie's scent up the wall to a second cave, where you really were," he said, grinning at his double in triumph. Pixie nodded, smirking.

"And what did I say, to the first thing you said?" she asked. Genki's grin grew even wider.

"You laughed, and said that sometimes you forget that I really am just a kid," he replied. As he finished, the fake scowled, and turned to run. On his second step, both Pixie and Tiger's ice spells crashed into him. The real Genki walked over, and plucked the Magic Stone from his double's frozen hand. Then he turned back to them, grinning. "So much for the mighty doppelgangers!" That broke the tension, as they regrouped, laughing. Still, as Genki carefully handed the Stone back to her, she had to wonder… Why had the Phoenix appeared? And how?

And why did Pixie not want to talk about it?

  


Genki glanced up, as Holly sat down beside him, smiling. The real Claira and her family were not far off, sleeping, as were the rest of his friends. Big Blue and Golem had carried the frozen doppelgangers to the river; eventually they would thaw out, but by then they'd be so far down the river that they'd never catch up. "Hey Genki," she said quietly. Tiger, Pixie and he had decided not to tell the others about what had happened on the bluff; not yet, anyway.

"Hi Holly," he replied. They had also decided not to tell them about his brief bonding to Pixie. Since it was gone now, there was no reason to. "What's up?" he asked. She smiled at him slightly.

"Nothing, really. I just noticed that you were awake still, and thought that you might like a little bit of company. It's been kinda a hectic few days, hasn't it?" she said. Genki nodded.

"Yeah, I guess that it has. Pixie in trouble, you guys in trouble… You got to kinda wonder about the timing of it all though. I mean, if Tiger and I hadn't split off to look for Pixie, we all would have been caught. But at the same time, Pixie wouldn't really have been in danger, if we hadn't gone to her." He paused, shaking his head. "It makes me kinda wonder how things might have been different, if we'd made different choices along the way, you know?" Holly nodded.

"Sometimes I wonder too," she said quietly. "I wonder what would have happened to Suezo and I if you hadn't been pulled into this world. I wonder if this all might have been avoided, if…" For a second, she paused, and then shook her head slightly. "…if Moo had never surfaced. But, that's not what happened. Moo did surface, and you were pulled into this world," she said. Genki nodded.

"I know, and like I've said before, although I miss my mom and my friends, if I had the choice today of going back and staying here, I'd stay here. I think that this is where I really belong," he said quietly. Holly smiled at him, and they sat quietly for a few minutes, thinking.

"Do you think that Pixie and Big Blue will join us, now?" she asked, after awhile. Genki looked at her a moment, but then, finally, shook his head.

"Not yet. But they will, someday. Pixie promised me that they would," he told her. She blinked at him.

"She gave you a promise?" she asked. Genki nodded, looking at the fire and remembering.

"She promised me, and I trust her. This time, she'll keep her word, I know it. We just have to be patient, and be ready to welcome them when they do come," he said quietly. "After all… When we beat Moo, if humans and monsters still don't trust each other, then we haven't really won yet. If we have to take the first step, and show blind trust, then that's what I'll do." Holly nodded after a moment.

"You won't be alone," she said quietly. He nodded, and then looked around.

"Hey… Where is Pixie, anyway?" he asked. He couldn't see her sleeping anywhere near, although Big Blue was a shadowed mass under an over hang. Holly frowned a moment.

"I think that she said something about her grandmother before walking off. That was a couple hours ago, though," she said. Genki rose quietly. "Where are you going?"

"Just for a walk, Holly. I'll be back in a little bit," he said. Holly paused, and then nodded.

"Say hello to Pixie for me," she said quietly. Genki nodded, and then turned, moving away from the small camp. He had kind of a guess of where she would be; earlier Holly had told him about the statue that looked like her but wasn't. Pixie had said that this was the town she'd been born in… maybe that statue was her grandmother. He shook his head. He was probably reaching just a bit, he knew, but it was his best guess.

The moonlight shone down through the decayed streets, giving him plenty of light to see by. He looked around, wondering what the town had really looked like, when Pixie had been young and growing up here. She hadn't really said much about it, like she hadn't cared, but… When she'd first told them that this was where she'd been born, her sense had been a maze of pride, pain, fear and fury. He wondered abruptly if this was where she'd been taken as a slave… Genki sighed. Having come to this world, and seeing and hearing of the things that humans sometimes did, he found himself wondering sometimes who the monsters really were. Was it the various creatures that humans had created and then exploited, or humans themselves? He wasn't as sure of the answer now as he once might have been.

His thoughts slowly turned to his own home. Was his mother looking for him? His friends? What was happening back there? Or had any time passed at all there? Would he get back to find everything just as he'd left it? He sighed, shaking his head. He hoped that they were all alright. Abruptly he grinned slightly. At least he didn't have to go to school.

Genki slowed down, as he reached the square that Holly had described to him. He saw the fountain that Holly had been talking about right off, but no Pixie. Slowly, he walked over to it. Holly had been right, the statue really did look like Pixie. She was older, though… her face a bit more gentle. She looked… like a grandmother, and made him think of his own grandmother, who had passed away a few years before.

Looking around again, he sighed softly, before turning to head back to the camp. As he did, he heard a soft sound from the other side of the fountain. Pausing, he slowly walked around the pool. Genki blinked, as he saw Pixie sitting on the ground, knees drawn up to her chest and head down, slowly rocking herself back and forth. On the verge of announcing himself, he suddenly thought better of it. Somehow, he didn't really think that she wanted to talk at the moment. Quietly, he turned to leave again, but managed to kick up a partly overturned cobblestone as he did. Pixie's head shot up as it clattered away, eyes wide in surprise as Genki froze. He felt his own eyes widen, as he registered the tears on her cheeks. Pixie had been… crying? The very notion of it caught him completely off guard… because he would never have thought of her as somebody who would let herself cry, even in private. He felt his heart sink. And now he had intruded on that privacy… Until that point in time, he'd never understood what a person meant when they said they wished they could melt through a crack in the sidewalk.

They stared at each other for a moment, and then, to his surprise, Pixie sighed, shaking her head. "She would have to send him as an answer, wouldn't she?" she muttered softly, making no move to wipe away her tears. Genki slowly unfroze, and shook his head.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you, Pixie. I'll just go back to-" Pixie shook her head, and, to his surprise, patted the ground beside her.

"No, Genki… To tell you the truth, I've been half expecting you," she said, her gray eyes flickering up to the statue for a split second. "Do you intend to stand there all night, or are you going to sit?" she asked, patting the ground again. He blinked, but slowly lowered himself to the ground next to her.

"What did you mean, 'send him for an answer?'" he asked quietly, curiosity getting the better of him at least. Pixie glanced at him, and then looked upward.

"When I was a little girl, and this village was still alive, my grandmother and I would sit here, under this old fountain, and watch for shooting stars at night. I never got tired of it, not really. We'd sit here, until I fell asleep from exhaustion." She paused, shaking her head. "One night, my entire family came out here. It was a special night, you see; there was going to be a meteor shower. The sky was clear, and it was a new moon, so there was nothing to block the view. The whole town was out; there was dancing, singing; a couple of the wealthier families even set up a potlatch."

"The shower started not long after dusk, but nobody was watching it. We were too busy fighting. The Slavemasters had come, to take us as slaves. They had planned it for when we were the most off guard." Genki glanced at her, as her voice cracked slightly. She was still looking skyward, but her tears had started again, and one hand had clenched into a tight fist. "It didn't take them long to overwhelm us. Most of the pixie weren't bonded, and the few who were, like my grandmother and mother, were killed outright. The Slavemasters had known exactly when and how to hit us. The last I saw of my family, my father and sister, they were being dragged in the opposite direction as me."

"Did you ever find them again?" he asked quietly. She shook her head.

"My sister, never. But after Moo freed us, I did find my father, or at least where he'd become a Lost Disk. I also found out, from the few villagers there that were still alive, how the Slavemasters had known all that they had. The man my grandmother-" her voice cracked again, and she shuddered slightly, as though fighting to keep control of herself "-had been bonded to, somebody I'd known all my life, had told them." She paused a moment, shivering, and then continued. "I swore that I'd never trust a human again, after that," she finished quietly. Genki was quiet a moment, not sure of what to do.

"Is… that why you blocked out the bond until it was too late to sever it? Because of what he did?" he asked, finally. She nodded ever so slightly.

"Probably. Somewhere, I knew that you wouldn't do the same, so instead of acknowledging it, I blocked it out until I had no choice." She laughed bitterly. "And it was still severed, in the end." Genki looked at her, and then took a deep breath. He knew that he didn't have anything that could compare to that, but…

"When I was eight, my grandmother passed away. I remember asking my mother at the funeral how come she didn't wake up. My mother told me that she was taking a different kind of nap than what I would take, one where she was in a special dream that let her watch over me." He paused, and smiled sadly. "It took me awhile before I realized that meant that she wouldn't be waking up ever again, but whenever it really got me sad, I remember what Mom told me. I mean, I know now that she's dead, not asleep, but that doesn't really matter… because as long as I remember her, she's always gonna be with me," he said. Slowly, she looked down from the stars and at him, curiosity in her gray eyes.

"Don't you miss them? Your family, and your world?" she asked him. He grinned.

"Of course I do, Pixie, just like you miss your family. But like my grandma, as long as I remember them, they're always with me, and I know that they'd be proud of me, if they knew what I'm doing here," he said. Pixie looked away, shaking her head.

"If my family knew all that I've done, they'd never look at me again," she said bitterly. Genki frowned.

"That's not true, Pixie. They wouldn't be your family, if they didn't forgive you - that's one of the most important things about a real family. They forgive you for mistakes, and besides… I don't think you ever really wanted to hurt anybody. Nobody could really blame you for what happened, after what you went through," he told her. "And… I've been thinking. If you were a Lost Disk, and then the Stone brought you back, doesn't that mean that you've… I dunno, been reborn? Given a second chance? You wouldn't have been given that, if you didn't deserve it," he said. She blinked, and looked at him.

"A second chance?" she asked, a touch of wonderment in her voice. Then she shook her head again. "Nobody could believe in me enough for that, Genki. Not after the stains I've put on my hands, and soul," she said quietly, turning away from him. He was silent a moment, and then, slowly, placed his hand on her shoulder. She started, and looked at him.

"I believe in you enough," he said softly. She stared at him, and opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, he spoke again. "Pixie, will you bond with me again? I am willing, if you are." Pixie stared at him, disbelief in her gray eyes. She was silent for a long time, before answering.

"I…" she began, and then paused, swallowing hard and wiping away the sudden tears forming once again in her eyes. "I…"

  


Tiger yawned, and squinted against the early morning light. Holly was slowly going about fixing the morning meal, Hare was sleepily peering about, Golem and Big Blue were both thoughtfully chewing on stones, and Suezo and Moochi were still asleep. He blinked - where was Genki? He looked around again - oh, there he was, over talking with Claira, her family and Pixie. Yawning again, Tiger rose and walked over to them. Claira was staring up at Pixie with a sort of giddy awe- for that matter, so were her parents. As he got near, he caught the tail end of their conversation.

"There is a cave about a day north of here where you could stay for awhile. It has some food and water, and firewood in the cave for fire. Moo's forces don't patrol up there; the only reason those doppels were here was because Genki and his friends were on their way up," said Pixie.

"When you're ready to move on, head south, though the forest to the coliseum. Tell Centaur that we asked them to help you; they are our friends, you can trust them. When you reach the sea, Captain Horn will take you across. You'll find free humans there," added Genki. Claira's mother smiled gratefully, nodding. 

"Thank you, for everything," she said, and then looked at Pixie. "My grandmother used to tell me stories about this town - she was born here. That's why we came… I hope that someday, the stories she told me will live here again." Pixie looked at her a moment, and then smiled slightly.

"Someday, they will," she said. Claira's mother nodded, and smiled in understanding.

"We should start moving, if we want to reach that cave before nightfall. Thank you for your help," said Claira's father. Then they turned, and started moving away, as Genki waved goodbye.

"Good luck!" he called. They disappeared around a street corner, and were gone. Genki and Pixie turned to each other. "They should be fine, if they lay low for a little while," he said. Pixie nodded.

"I'm surprised you sent them to Centaur. Even if you did defeat him, he still will be serving Gray Wolf and Moo," she said. Genki grinned.

"Didn't you say the same about yourself? They will help them… they have honor," he said. Pixie looked at him a moment, expression unreadable, and then nodded slightly in agreement. Genki grinned again, and then blinked, as they finally noticed Tiger. "Oh, hey there Tiger. Good morning," he said. Tiger nodded at them, and looked at Pixie.

"Speaking of my brother, do you know how far from his lair we are now?" he asked. Pixie nodded.

"Not very. If you keep moving like you have been, you will reach it in about two weeks. He won't be easy to defeat," she said quietly. Tiger nodded.

"I know. I'm the one who taught him," he replied. Pixie nodded - to his surprise, Tiger thought he saw a flash of sympathy in her gray eyes. Sympathy, from Pixie? Even knowing her better than he had a week before, it caught him off guard. He wouldn't have thought of Pixie as one to show emotions, even so faintly.

After an awkward moment, Genki said, "Come on you two, don't be so doom and gloom! We won, let's celebrate!" As his typical hyperactiveness started kicking in again, he jogged over to the main camp. As he got near, Suezo suddenly sat up; the two collided. Genki landed hard, catching himself on his elbow. "Ouch!" Tiger blinked, as beside him, Pixie winced and rubbed her own elbow - the same one that Genki had just landed on. He remembered that Genki had felt it when Pixie was knocked into the wall by the doppelganger - but the bond had been severed, hadn't it? He looked at her questioningly. She gave him a level gaze in return, but then the faintest ghost of a smile touched her lips and she nodded ever so slightly.

They had re-bonded?

Tiger glanced back over at his friends, and then started laughing, shaking his head. He should have seen that one coming. Holly and Hare looked at him in surprise, as he and Pixie came over and sat down near Genki. "What's so funny?" asked Suezo. Tiger glanced at Genki and Pixie, and then smirked.

"Well, I told you before Genki and I left not to let Hare do any planning without me around to get you out of trouble, and you wouldn't get caught, and look what happened," he said, glancing at Hare. The six foot tall rabbit frowned at him.

"I didn't see you too suspicious of Claira's doppelganger, Tiger. I thought you said you could smell a Baddie a mile away!" he taunted. Tiger paused for just a moment, and considered taking the bait, growling. Then he abruptly shrugged, and smirked.

"I had a cold," he replied. Hare, who had been ready with another quip was left with his mouth hanging open as the others laughed. Tiger smirked, as Holly started serving the meal.

  


"Well Holly, which way?" asked Genki. Holly grinned.

"Hang on, I'm checking. Maybe I ought to have you do this now," she replied, cupping the Magic Stone in her hands. It glowed for a moment, and then pointed north once again. Pixie, sitting on Big Blue's shoulder, nodded.

"We are going to head east; Claira's parents said that there might be other humans there," she said. Genki nodded, grinning.

"You know how to find us," he said. Pixie smiled slightly, and nodded.

"I do. Good luck, until next time," she replied, as Big Blue turned toward the rising sun and started walking away.

"Good bye Pixie, Big Blue! Stay safe!" they called. Genki smiled.

-Stay safe, Genki.-

-You too, Pixie.- he replied. Then he turned to his friends, grinning even wider. "O.K.! Let's go, come on, the Phoenix is waiting!"


	2. Episode 2: Ties to the Past

The Pixie Chronicles: Ties to the Past

  


Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Monster Rancher, nor do I want credit for their creation, only those that I personally created and used in this story. Please don't sue me; I have no money in any case. 

Please direct comments, quips, insults, flames, and/or death threats to [Platinum_Dragon@usinternet.com][1]

Author's Note: This fiction takes place directly after Bonds of Trust.

  


*****

  


Pixie laughed, as she dove just over Big Blue's shoulder, startling him as she flashed by. Spreading her wings again, she caught a bit of a thermal, and let herself float lazily above his shoulder, smiling and enjoying the feel of the sun across her wings and back. He glanced up at her, as he plodded along at his usual, steady pace. "You seem in high spirits, Master Pixie," he observed. She smirked.

"You've never had to wait a month and a half on wings to heal, much less live without the ability to fly. Wouldn't you be in a good mood when you got it back?" she asked him dryly. Big Blue gave her a doubtful look.

"If you say so, Master Pixie," he replied, "but with respect, I believe that I will remain satisfied with my feet." She laughed again, and dropped low enough to lightly touch his shoulder.

"Poor Big Blue. Too big to fly, too heavy to swim. You just don't have any luck, do you?" she said, smiling at him fondly. He made a non-committal sound, and kept walking. It had been a quiet two weeks, since Big Blue and she had split off from Genki and his friends. She stretched out with her mind, concentrating; Genki was north and to the west of her, and seemingly in high spirits. After a moment, she felt a alight surge in his sense; he'd noticed that she was seeking him out. She sent back a brief, answering surge, and smiled in spite of herself. Two weeks, since she and Genki had bonded one another after she, Tiger, and Big Blue had been resurrected by the Magic Stone. Genki and the others had continued northward, while she and Big Blue went east, hearing that there might be some more human families in that direction. They were planning to send them south, to the free continent, and then catch up with Genki and the others.

Somedays, she still found herself wondering why she had agreed to bond with him. Rebond, to be precise; the bond had formed itself when they'd been trying to escape the Scaled Jells, but had been broken when the doppelganger had turned Big Blue, Tiger, and herself into Lost Disks. And then Genki and the Stone brought us back to life, she thought to herself. She'd been given... a second chance, as Genki had said. Pixie smiled slightly. She didn't think that she would ever understand her choice, but maybe... Maybe she didn't have to. Maybe it was enough that she had made it, and knew that it had been the right one.

"Little twerp," she said softly. Big Blue glanced up at her.

"Pardon, Master Pixie?" he asked in curiosity, as she lightly landed on his shoulder, and let her wings fold up.

"Nothing, Blue. I was debating on if we should start to swing to the north, or keep moving to the east. We aren't too far from the coast now, I don't think, and if there were any other families out here, I think that they must have already moved on," she told him. He nodded.

"Perhaps," he agreed. "Another day in this direction, and then north?" he suggested. Pixie nodded.

"That's what I'd been thinking. So, we'll see if we find anybody today, make a camp tonight, and then start out fresh in the morning to the northwest," she decided. Big Blue nodded, plodding along. Things were almost painfully quiet; a few birds chirped from the sparse trees, and now and then the wind would bluster through the low hills. Aside from that, nothing made a sound, save for Big Blue's heavy footsteps. She sighed, and looked around in boredom. The low-laying hills that they'd been moving through for the past few days had been hopelessly barren, even for a region controlled by Moo. She'd been trying to remember what monsters patrolled here, though to no avail. She'd never really wanted to know much about this area, when she'd been one of the Big Bad Four. It was too close to her home village, and she'd done her best to forget about it. Besides, her domain had been leagues south of it; even flying it was a good week and a half trip. Now she found it to have been a bad choice.

Only one more in a long line of them, she thought to herself, before shaking her head slightly. No, that had been a different life, and she'd been reborn... She'd been given a second chance, a chance to make things right, and she refused to waste it with self-pity over past mistakes. Besides, she thought to herself, I've got more important things to worry about. Like if I'm going to sleep on my back or my side tonight, the way things are going. She chuckled, and Big Blue glanced at her, raising a questioning eyebrow. Pixie grinned.

"Important decisions, Blue. Just making important decisions," she said, in answer to his unspoken question. They continued on their way eastward, the sun reaching its high point and then start starting a slow slide back down. Pixie caught herself starting to nod off a few times, things were so quiet, and lashed her tail in irritation. She hadn't really been expecting to find any humans out here, but even so, this area was beyond deserted! By now they should have at least run into a patrol. Almost, she hoped that they would, if for nothing more than a bit of excitement! Glancing back at the sun, and guessing the time to be about six, she finally shook her head, and pointed ahead to a copse of trees that they were heading toward.

"Let's call it a night, Blue. I might fall off your shoulder if we go any farther. There's nobody out here," she told him. Big Blue nodded, and angled for the trees. She stood, stretching, and then hopped down from his shoulder to walk the rest of the way herself, stifling a jaw-cracking yawn in the process. She shook her head, and rubbed her neck idly. Two weeks of traveling, for no results. Oh well; it was better then sitting around for a month and a half, waiting for her wings to heal had been. She'd been cooped up in that cave for so long that she had been one big sunburn from head to toe after their first day of traveling. Big Blue hadn't been sure which was redder, her skin or her hair. At least that had evened out into a nice, bronze-colored tan, she thought wryly.

They reached the small copse and set out their camp; Big Blue collecting wood for a fire and Pixie setting out her bedroll. "Looks like it'll be another quiet night. I'm almost tempted to not even bother with guard duty tonight, but..." she began, and then trailed off as they heard an explosion from not far away. They looked at each other, blinking in surprise, and then they both stood up. "Wasn't I just saying it would be a quiet night? I'll fly ahead and check it out; keep low and don't show yourself unless you have to. No need for them to know that I'm not alone," she told him, as she spread her wings. He nodded, and she took off, turning in the air to head toward the flashes that were lighting the darkening eastern sky from behind a hill.

Gliding high, Pixie reached that hill quickly, mentally preparing for a battle, but when she arrived, she still found herself staring in disbelief. At the base of the hillock, a human woman clutched tightly to a small bundle as she struggled to keep moving forward. Circling lazily above her, two pixie were laughing, one raising her hand almost contemptuously. In the glow that began to form, Pixie saw that her hair and clothing were black, while the other's was a light blue. The black-haired one aimed, and Pixie desperately folded in her wings and plunged downward at her. She was a split-second too late, though; the ball lightning flashed away as she slammed into the black-haired pixie with her shoulder. They fell toward the ground, her opponent caught too off guard to do anything as Pixie snapped her wings back open and glided back upward to a safe height while she slammed into the ground.

"Laurel!" exclaimed the blue-hair, as she launched a salvo of lightning blasts at Pixie. She wove and rolled, bobbed and weaved through the attack, and then launched her own set back at her. One of the blasts caught the upper edge of the pixie's wing, and she tumbled from the skies to land in a heap not far from her companion. Looking around quickly to see if she could see Big Blue, Pixie landed between them and the still form of the human woman, the words of another attack spell ready in the back of her mind. The blue-haired one got up unsteadily, and then scowled at her as she slowly backed toward her fallen comrade.

"Who do you think you are? The Queen won't be happy when she hears about this!" she shouted, as she knelt and lightly touched the other's shoulder - Laurel, Pixie had heard her call her, when she'd first hit her. Pixie put on her best devil-may-care smirk, and summoned up every ounce of menace she'd ever had under Moo's command.

"Now ask me if I care," she replied coldly. "Tell your 'Queen' that Pixie said her fun is over." The blue-hair looked like she was ready to fight again, having shaken off the effects of her sudden drop from the skies, but Laurel shook her head weakly, touching her shoulder lightly.

"Forget it Leana - the human is dead, and I'm hurt bad. You know you can't heal a bruise; I need to get to the aide house," she told her weakly. Leana frowned, her eyes flickering to the unmoving form of the human, and then nodded, before scowling at Pixie.

"Next time you're mine," she spat, before spreading her wings and carrying Laurel away. Pixie watched them fly off, frowning, and then hurried over to the woman's side once they'd disappeared in the distance, gently rolling her over. With a grimace, she quickly turned her back to her previous position; the woman's face was split open like a frankfurter, the skin red and torn, in some places even scoured away to the white bone below. The blast must have hit her almost square in the face, Pixie thought to herself sadly, as she fought to hold the bile rising in her throat down. Big Blue suddenly crested the hill, and then came down a bit slower, as he realized that the battle was already over.

"Too late Blue," she said, as she slowly rose. "I got here just in time to miss stopping the blast that killed her." He nodded quietly, as she looked around. Not far away was the bundle that the woman had been clutching so tightly. Curious, she stepped over to it, and then blinked as it suddenly began to move about. A high-pitched, crying sound began to issue from within it. Slowly, Pixie reached down, and pulled back the top flap, and then felt the blood drain from her face as she looked up at Big Blue.

The bundle was a baby human girl.

  


"Well, now we know that there are indeed humans here," said Big Blue dryly, as Pixie did her best to cradle the fussing child. She gave him a flat look, and then jumped as the baby got a good grip on one of her fingers, pulled it to her mouth, and begin to suck on it. Pixie sighed, and then smiled in spite of herself.

"I get the hint," she said. Big Blue gave her a curious look.

"What, Master Pixie?" he asked. Pixie shifted slightly, and grinned at him wryly as the baby kept suckling on her finger.

"She's trying to say that she'd hungry," she told him, before frowning in thought. "Didn't we pass some goats about an hour before we stopped here?" He nodded.

"Yes, but can't you...?" He trailed off uncertainly. It took her a moment to understand what he was suggesting, and when she did, she scowled at him.

"I'm a pixie Blue, not a milk dispensary!" she exclaimed; the baby stopped suckling and gave her a surprised look at her outburst. She shook her head. "Just see if you can find one, they were heading this way."

"What if those other pixie return?" he asked. She raised her free hand and let a few crackles of energy spark to life; the baby giggled in delight.

"What if they do? We'll be fine, and besides, I have the feeling that they wouldn't try again so quickly. The two that were sent out were just after the woman, I think; I doubt that they'll worry about a lone pixie. They probably think that I've already left the area, since they never saw you," she said. He frowned a moment, but then nodded, and then plodded off. Pixie watched him go, and then sighed, turning her attention back to the squirming, giggling baby girl and frowning slightly. "So, this area is controlled by Pixie. I'm not surprised that Moo never told me. I wonder who this Queen is; she must think quite a bit of herself to chance Moo's wraith by naming herself a ruler." The baby just looked at her, a curious expression in her light green eyes. Pixie grinned in spite of herself.

"I suppose that you probably don't know, do you?" she said, lightly tapping her nose with a finger. A long time ago, while she had been a slave, one of her masters had made her the head nursemaid. It had been her job to take care of his children, and she'd learned that well enough, practically raising three of them herself; he'd never had any real interest in them until they were older. Of course, for as little as he liked children, he'd also had a particular affinity for trying to make them, as she had found out one evening, called into his study. With a scowl, Pixie ripped her mind away from the memory and banished it away once again; that had not, to say the least, been a very pleasant experience. 

"Looks like we're going to be together for awhile kid. At least until I find some of your own kind to leave you with," she said, mentally groaning. That meant slower travel, finding a constant supply of milk, not to mention the rest of the aggravations that a baby came hand in hand with. Pixie sighed again, and shook her head slightly.

The baby cooed, and then impatiently pressed at her breast with a tiny hand. Pixie gently pulled the child's hand away, smiling slightly. "I'm sorry, but I can't feed you," she said quietly. "You'll just have to be patient until Big Blue gets back." She made an unhappy sound, but seemed to give up the notion of getting a meal from Pixie, at least for the moment. "I'm sorry little one... I'm not your mother," she said sadly. No... thought Pixie, your mother is dead because I was too slow.

The child merely watched her, giggling now and then as if she knew a joke. Pixie sighed, and wished that she knew what it was. Maybe then she could laugh about something too. They waited, as darkness slowly fell over the camp, and the stars began to come out. She found herself leaning back with the fussing child, and watching. "You know, I remember doing this with my grandmother," she said quietly, rocking the child back and forth. "It was my favorite thing to do, just sit and watch the stars coming out." The baby cooed, and then started sucking her thumb. Pixie laughed in spite of herself.

"I suppose that we need something better then just 'the baby' to call you. Any suggestions?" asked Pixie. The child gave her a wide, toothless smile, and suddenly an idea came to her. "Cheerful little thing, aren't you? A lot like my little sister; always grinning, always laughing," she said sadly, smiling. "Her name was Toril. I think I'll call you Tori, after her. How does that sound?" The infant cooed a moment, and then pressed at Pixie's breast again.

"You've got a one track mind, kid," she laughed, before glancing up as she heard the plodding sound of Big Blue drawing near. "Maybe that's dinner coming now." As it turned out, she was right; one bleating goat was held in each of his huge hands. Rooting thought her satchel provided some rope to tie them with; a more thorough search produced a cup and a clean cloth that could absorb the milk and Tori could suckle on. Pixie shifted her around a little, and then milked a cup full from one of the goats.

"All right," she said, dipping the cloth and letting it soak up some of the milk, "I know that this isn't what you're used to, but it's the best that I can do on short notice." Tori gurgled, and then began to contentedly suckle on the cloth once Pixie placed it to her mouth. Pixie grinned at Big Blue. "See? I told you that she was hungry." He nodded uncertainly.

"Speaking of the evening meal, Master Pixie, I should prepare yours," he rumbled. She smiled, pausing to dip the cloth again for Tori.

"Something light, Blue; I'm not particularly hungry," she told him. He nodded, and began to sort through their gear. Tori drank another two soakings of milk, and then seemed to get her fill, so Pixie turned her to burp her. As she started to lightly pat her back, she felt something odd through the blanket covering her. Blinking, Pixie unwrapped the tot's blanket, and then gasped in shock.

A pair of small wings sprouted from her back, as well as a tail. "Blue... this child is half-pixie!" she breathed. The golem blinked, and looked at her in surprise.

"I was not aware that was possible," he said slowly. Pixie shook her head.

"No - it's rare - that is, not as common as a full human child, or a full pixie child would be - but it happens. My grandmother always said that it was because of all the monsters, pixie are the most like humans," she replied slowly. "There were a few in my village; one of my best friends was one, but when the Slave Masters came they were all killed on the spot for being 'abominations.'" Tori fussed, and with a start Pixie remembered that she'd been burping her. Gently, being careful not to damage the wings, she started patting her back again.

"But in these times?" he asked curiously. She nodded.

"Granted, but a better question would be who - half-breeds can only be birthed by female pixie; males are infertile with humans," she said, frowning. "That woman couldn't have been her mother... which means that Tori was the real target; they must have thought that she was already dead, after that blast that killed the woman." They looked at each other, frowning in thought. "I don't know about you, but now I really want to meet this 'Queen.'"

  


Leana knelt, as the guardswoman leading her stopped, and announced her. "Huntress Leana, returning from her assignment, your Majesty," she intoned. 

There was a brief pause, and then Leana heard the dulcet tones of her Queen. "Rise. I seem to recall that you left with Huntress Laurel. Where is she?" she asked. Leana rose uncertainly, but kept her eyes glued to her feet.

"Recovering, Majesty. We found the human, and she was about to kill her when another pixie appeared. Laurel was badly injured, but the human is dead; she got the shot off, and it hit her in the face," she replied slowly, keeping her eyes downcast. The Queen paused a moment.

"Another pixie? Not of our clan? Describe her," she ordered finally.

"She appeared to be a little under two hundred and fifty, Majesty; red hair cut short, red fur; she bore Moo's medallion on her tunic. She named herself Pixie, my Queen," she told her. 

There was another pause, this the longest, and somehow, the most stifling yet, and then, softly, her voice neutral, the Queen asked, "She named herself... Pixie? And her hair and fur were red?"

"Yes, Majesty. She... told me to tell you that the fun was over," replied Leana slowly. The Queen laughed, shattering the deathly stillness that had settled on the room.

"A single pixie, bearing only the mark of Moo... Somehow, I doubt it, Huntress Leana. Should she be found, she is to be brought here, to me. What of the child?" she asked.

"I can not be certain, my Queen. The interloper landed between us and her; and Laurel was badly hurt. I did not want to leave her unprotected," she replied guiltily. "I submit myself for punishment."

"Bah. You did correctly; no half breed's life is worth one of ours. In any case, she is dealt with. You may return to your duties, Huntress Leana," said the Queen. Leana bowed again, and let the guardswoman lead her out. She was nearly to the chamber door, when suddenly the Queen called, "Oh, Huntress Leana... Her eyes - what color were they?" She stopped, and looked at the Queen, blinking. She was watching Leana intently, gray eyes unreadable under a shock of bright red hair.

"Her... eyes?" she asked uncertainly. The Queen nodded.

"Yes. What color were they?" she repeated.

"They were... like yours, I think. Gray, like storm clouds on the horizon. I didn't get a very good look though; the light was behind her and it was hard to tell," she said uncertainly. The Queen nodded, face growing thoughtful as she waved her away.

"That will be all," she said. Leana nodded, and left the room quickly. Once outside of the Royal house, she spread her wings and flew over to the hospice that she'd dropped Laurel off at. Inside, the dark-haired pixie was just having the last of her wounds treated by the magic of the healers.

"That was a quick audience Leana," she said, smiling as she saw her friend. 

"The Queen was in a very lenient mood today," she replied. "She seemed very interested in that rogue pixie," she added after a moment. Laurel shrugged, standing and rubbing her neck as the last of the healers moved away from her.

"Who can know the minds of men and queens?" she asked, before grinning. "And speaking of men, the new duty roster was posted while we were out; I managed to convince one of the nurses to bring me a copy while they were healing me. We've been assigned to the same hunting party as Tasurus and Arowyn this cycle." Leana raised her eyebrow, trying to fight down the upward twitch at the corners of her mouth.

"Is that so?" she murmured. Laurel smirked at her.

"Give it up Leana, I saw you sneaking looks at Tasurus all through role call this morning..."

  


Pixie secured her pack between her wings, and then handed Big Blue the medallion that had once marked her as one of Moo's troops. She still wore it, of course; it was a reminder for her, a reminder of what waited her if she chose the wrong path again. The golem was holding Tori in one huge hand with a perplexed expression on his face. "You do understand what I want you to do, right?" she asked. He nodded.

"Yes, if not why, Master Pixie. I am to carry her south, and wait for one week for you at the lake we passed. If you don't return by the end of that time, I am to carry her to Centaur and make my way back toward Northtown with her," he replied. Pixie nodded.

"This way she'll be safe, and I can investigate," she said, plucking at the light green tunic she'd replaced her usual red one with. She had dyed out her hair and fur as well; where before it had been flame red, now it was a shiny black. 

"I do not like the idea of you going in alone," he rumbled. She smiled, and flew up to touch his cheek. 

"You never like it when we split up, Blue," she said wryly.

"And look what happens when we do," he replied evenly, though a faint smile had begun to form on his lips. "You get injured, use up all your energy, get bonded..." Pixie laughed in spite of herself.

"Oh, so that's it, you're jealous because you have to share me with a human," she said teasingly. "Don't worry, I promise that I won't forget you - what was your name again?" she asked, giving him a devilish smile. "Relax Blue. Even Genki wouldn't recognize me now, bond to show him where I am or not; those two certainly won't. I'll be in and out, I promise." Big Blue just sighed, and shook his head.

"I will see you in a week, Master Pixie," he replied dryly, before turning and plodding off with Tori and the goat.

"Be careful, old friend," she said quietly, smiling again, before turning and spreading her wings, flying in the direction that the two pixie had gone. It was a nice enough day for a flight; there was a bit of a head wind, but nothing substantial. Frowning, she looked for any signs of an encampment, or strip mine such as she had been placed in charge of at Northtown; all she saw was an unblemished green field. The low hills fettered out; tall, waving grasses replaced them, making the ground look much like a sea in its own right.

She flew on, and after three hours, started to catch a touch of salt in the air; a touch of the sea that she dimly remembered from decades before, when one of her Masters had decided to move to the ocean side. It was a scent that one always remembered; a tang that was in some ways quite unpleasant, and yet, surprisingly enjoyable. Listening carefully, she thought that she could even hear the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. Not long after, the grasslands started giving way to trees, until she was flying above a thick forest. Pixie looked down, smiling faintly as she caught the occasional glimpse of a deer or snuffling bear; through one small break she thought she caught a glimpse of a tiger, wolfishly lean body disappearing under cover even as she saw its purple fur. 

Shaking her head and reminding herself that this wasn't a sightseeing tour, Pixie looked around for any evidence of a village or town. She found it in the form of two pixie that abruptly dropped in beside her, each holding a spear tipped with wicked foot and a half long blades. One of those spears was tilted until its tip lay lightly against her side; Pixie schooled her face to one of proper surprise and fear. 

"Name yourself; state your business; we do not recognize you girl," said the one on her left, the one holding the spear to her. Her hair was cut very short; a light golden that blended well with the white and gold uniform both she and her companion wore. The one on her right had a greenish blue mane that flowed down her back, and became her tail. Pixie swallowed hard, and let herself flinch away from the spear slightly.

"My... my name? My business? I... I don't even know... know where I am... I was caught up by a storm, and wasn't able to fight f-free until just recently," she said; for her trouble the spear was pressed a little tighter up against her side. 

"You are in the territory of the pixie, girl; now tell us your name, or you'll never see your homeland again," growled the one on the left. Pixie swallowed again, and let her eyes quiver just slightly, as if she was about to start crying.

"I-I-I... My n-name is H-Holly," she said. "R-really, I didn't mean to be here, b-but that storm, and the wind, and... and..." She trailed off, sniffling. The two pixie looked at each other for a few moments, while they forced Pixie into a slow circle in the air between them. They had been well trained, Pixie had to give them that; but there was something that was bothering her, something that seemed familiar, especially about those uniforms. "T-those are r-r-really pretty uniforms," she ventured. The one on the right looked at her for a moment, and then her gaze softened slightly.

"They are our Queen's own design; the uniform of the Tularian Guardswomen," she replied. "She told us that they were the uniforms of the guards from the village she was born in, before the slavers came, before we escaped, and she united us," she told her. "Ease up Jana; this one is little threat. We have heard that there were those on the south lands that escaped the slavers and Moo; perhaps she is from that far south. In that case, mayhaps we can learn of our sisters and brothers in that land before she leaves." The pixie on her left frowned a moment, but then slowly lifted her spear from Pixie's side; she forced herself not to reflexively rub her side to see if her skin had been pierced. Escaped the slavers and Moo? 

"I... I've heard of s-somebody named M-Moo at home... T-they say that he's a thousand feet tall and s-so thin that when he turns sideways he disappears," she said, trying to ply for information. Jana laughed ruefully, shaking her head; the one on her right smirked slightly.

"A good thing that the rumors aren't true; the real beast is bad enough. He is a tyrant, and rules over most of this land with an iron fist. Many of the Guardswomen have died in fending off the attacks of his henchmen on Tularia; many Huntresses have vanished completely while on the Hunt," she replied; mentally Pixie nodded in agreement. He was bad enough in real life without adding on the rumors that had grown around him. But what she was more interested in was the fact that she seemed to be saying this Tularia wasn't ruled by Moo; quite the opposite, they had fought off more then one of his attacks.

"H-he's real t-then?" she stammered; forcing herself not to grimace at her own act. The green-maned pixie nodded grimly.

"All too real, unfortunately," she said gravely. "And by the way; she is Jana, and I am called Eve," she added after a moment. Pixie nodded, smiling gratefully, as she filed away that information. 

"Y-your Queen must be a g-great leader, to have kept you free of such a monster," she said slowly. Now she was fishing for information, and she very well knew it, but there wasn't much else that she could do right now. Eve nodded deeply, smiling broadly.

"She fought her way free of the slavers that had captured most of the First Generation; those that founded Tularia; she fought her way free and then forged the First Generation together, brought them to Tularia. It was she that kept them together, when Moo first arose; she that walked out alone to face down the army he sent to destroy them," she said reverently.

"First G-Generation?" asked Pixie slowly. 

"The first thirty pixie that settled Tularia; the ones who, using the human slavers as the slavers had once used them, built the Forest Wall. Jana and I are of the eighth generation, you see; the First Generation set the mold; we have now lived here for almost two hundred years," she explained. This time Pixie didn't have to pretend to let her eyes go wide; EIGHTH generation?? Even starting without only thirty pixie, that figured out to be at least four to five hundred pixie in this Tularia. And all free, beyond this Queen.

"Human slaves?" she asked. "W-where I come f-from, we live in peace." Jana snorted.

"Humans, peaceful," she muttered; Pixie blinked; she'd been starting to think that she was a mute. Eve reached past Pixie to lightly touch her shoulder.

"Be at ease, Jana; even our Queen sometimes speaks of a time when she and her family lived in peace with the humans, even if we can not imagine such a time. Perhaps, as they have not heard of Moo in the south, the slavers did not rise as they did here," she admonished her. Pixie turned her eyes downward, wary of them betraying her at a crucial moment; the two pixie seemed not to notice. 

"S-so where are you taking m-me?" she asked after a moment, once she was sure that she was in full control of herself again. Eve nodded ahead.

"There, to Tularia," she replied; Pixie looked forward and then stared in disbelief. Ahead of them, the forest suddenly dropped off to reveal a city that seemed to have grown cleanly out of it; behind the city, the sea crashed against a great wall that arched out from the edge of the land. At the far edge, the beginnings of a palace could be seen, though it definitely had a long, long way to go. Eve and Jana started directing her into a downward spiral, toward a lodge that was in roughly the middle of the city. Hundreds of pixie milled through the streets; they started passing quite a few of them in the air. One dropped in above Pixie.

"Who's this, Guardswoman Eve?" she called.

"Holly, from the south lands; a storm caught her up and brought her here, Captain Ariala. We were bringing her in to see the Queen; find some temporary quarters for her until she is able to leave," she said. "Unless you think otherwise?" Captain Ariala frowned a moment, and then shook her head.

"No, proceed. Just see to it that she isn't left alone until we're sure that rogue pixie has left the area," she ordered. Eve nodded.

"Of course, Captain," she replied, smiling. The Captain flew off.

"Rogue?" asked Pixie, sublimating a smile. Jana shook her head.

"Yesterday a hunting party was sent after an escaped human. When they returned, Laurel, one of the Huntresses, had been badly hurt by a rogue pixie bearing Moo's medallion. Her description has been circulated, and we were told to be on the lookout for her," she said.

"It is the reason we were so rough with you," said Eve. "We wished to be certain that you were not her." Pixie shook her head vehemently.

"Oh no, not me! I pass out when I see blood, I can't fight..." she said, grinning weakly. Jana smirked, shaking her head; Eve smiled.

"You need not worry while you are here; the forest has always kept us safe; never have Moo's troops traced us to our home," she said. They drifted down, and then finally landed before the stone lodge. "Present yourself with dignity, and remember well that you are speaking to royalty, Holly," advised Eve. Pixie nodded, letting her eyes go a little wide, as though she was some little girl that had never been off her mother's apron strings before. There was something to be said for this queen, if she had been ruling for nearly two hundred years and the public trusted her, but none the less, she probably wasn't much more than a village girl that had been thrust into the situation, and had accepted because she hadn't thought she had a choice. Given ten minutes alone with her, Pixie was willing to bet that she could eat her alive.

The two Guardswomen led her inside, after first checking their odd spears at the doorway. Pixie automatically noted out the various places where other guards might have hidden themselves; places where she could duck behind if a fight broke out. There were, she had to admit, an impressive amount of guards. Eve and Jana kept leading her forward, to a pair of heavy double doors, carved with a relief of the entrance to the Great Forest, where it was said that pixie who had led just lives dwelled after their death. Eve stepped aside slightly, and pulled on a braided, red and golden rope; a bell tolled three times. After a moment, the doors were pulled open from inside.

Inside, a blue carpet with thread-of-gold and silver embroidery along the edges ran ahead, and up a short set of steps to a raised dais in the center of the room. There, on a central chair, around which four guards wearing a crimson sash over the same white and gold uniforms as Jana and Eve, and bearing swords at their waists, sat who Pixie presumed was the Queen. She looked to be not much younger than Pixie; only a year at most. She had a shock of red hair that was nearly as brilliant red as Pixie's was, and eyes much the same color gray. She could almost be my twin, Pixie thought to herself in surprise. The pixie looked up slightly, and suddenly Pixie's breath caught in her throat, as she saw the line of a deep crack on the underside of her left horn.

"Well... First a rogue pixie, and now someone from the south lands... This is turning out to be quite the unusual few days," she said suddenly, as Eve and Jana stopped. It took Pixie a moment to find her voice again.

"I... I... Yes, y-your majes... majesty... I... I was caught in a s-storm..." she said slowly, trying vainly to slow her spinning mind. Pixie knew where the 'Queen' had gotten that crack on the underside of her horn, because she had been there the day that her sister had fallen and broken it against the table side.

"Probably the one that blew through here a few days ago; it was a bad one, I agree. Well child; name yourself, unless you prefer that I refer to you as child until you go?" she said. Pixie started.

"H-Holly, your highness," she said. It was Toril... When she'd last seen her, she'd only been eight, and Toril only seven... But that crack was too distinctive, and how else could she look so much like her? And those uniforms - it was the red sashes that had finally given it over to Pixie, they were almost exact duplicates of the guard uniform that their own mother had worn. It was her sister... Her sister, that had ordered the death of that woman and of Tori. For a long moment, she struggled with a strong notion to give her true identity, but slowly decided against it. No... She didn't know her; it had been almost two hundred and fifty years since they'd last seen each other. Better to hold her tongue, and do what she had come to do.

"Holly... An interesting name. It has been many decades since we heard from the south lands; I look forward to hearing what has gone on there, if you have time before you go. Guardswoman Eve, see to it that she is welcomed and properly provided for," she said. Eve nodded.

"Yes, my Queen," she said; Toril looked at Pixie for a moment.

"Feel free to look about while you are here, Holly of the south lands, but be wary of leaving the city without an escort; some of the animals in the forest are quite vicious," she said. Pixie nodded.

"Y-yes, your h-highness... I... err... Th-thank you..."

  


Toril frowned slightly, as the dark-haired pixie was led from the royal chamber. For a moment, as she'd been looking at her, she'd thought... But no, that wasn't possible, she reminded herself. It had been so long ago, and her memory of that time was so fragmented... Yet those eyes, so much like her own, even as she had seemed so confused and frightened... Toril shook her head.

"Something the matter, Queen?" asked Leona, one of her four elite guards. She was also one of her oldest friends and advisors. 

"Nothing, old friend. It's just that, for a moment, that Holly girl made me think of somebody I haven't seen for a very, very long time," she said. "A very... very long time..."

  


Pixie frowned slightly, as Eve led her to a large inn not far away from the royal hall of the town. "We don't often get visitors out here, but now and then they do come by. Often enough, at least, that this old place hasn't gone out of business yet. You can stay here until you decide to leave; should you need anything, ask one of the Tularian Guard for Jana or myself, and they will get us for you," she said.

"Ok," replied Pixie absentmindedly. Toril, alive, and queen of this Tularia... 

"Are you well, Holly of the south lands?" asked Eve suddenly. Pixie blinked, and looked at her.

"Pardon?"

"You seemed troubled," replied Eve.

"Oh... It's just that it's finally starting to sink in just how far from home I am now," she said slowly. "What, with meeting your queen and all... I guess that before now, I hadn't really believed I could be so far away..." Eve smiled comfortingly.

"I imagine that it must be rather a bit unsettling. Do not worry, things will be fine, I'm sure," she said, as they landed before the inn. Eve opened the door, and then waved over the owner, a plump, elderly pixie who looked like she'd had experience in settling more than a few rowdy patrons.

"Hello Guardswoman Eve; who's this? I don't think that I've seen her around town before, have I?" she said, as she reached them. The smile she wore nearly split her face in two; the deep lines of her wrinkled face did. 

"Her name is Holly, and she is from the south lands Lucia; that bad storm that passed through here a few days ago caught her up and pulled her here. The queen has asked that we make her as comfortable as we can, until she is ready to go home," replied Eve, smiling. The innkeep laughed in delight.

"The south lands! I was there once, a very long time ago, before the slavers came through here. It was such a beautiful place, why, I met my first bondmate there!" she exclaimed. Pixie nodded; out of the corner of her eye she saw Eve's cheeks flush suddenly. "Ah, but I do miss that time, even for what the slavers did to us; poor Eve here has never known what it's like to share one's life with another. Are you bonded, child?" she asked. Pixie shook her head, and affected a curious look.

"Bonded?" she asked. Lucia sighed.

"You mean that you don't know about the Bond? What a pity..." she said, losing some of her smile. Eve cleared her throat. 

"Ah... I need to get back to my patrol, Lucia; would you please see that Holly gets properly settled?" she asked. The innkeep nodded.

"Certainly child, certainly. Say hello to Jana for me, will you? The two of you never visit anymore! It gets so lonely here..." she said, smiling again. Eve nodded. 

"Yes, of course Lucia. Thank you," she said, bowing. Lucia waved as she ducked back out the doorway, and then turned to Pixie.

"Now then child, come along, let's get you settled in nice and comfy shall we?" she said, placing a motherly hand on Pixie's shoulder. "I'm sure that you must be hungry for a good meal after such a frightening trip, why, I just put a new batch of mutton stew on to cook," she said, smiling broadly. Pixie let herself be led up the stairwell by the older woman, but as they started up the stairs, she caught a glimpse of a hunched over form slipping into a doorway that Pixie hadn't seen as she'd come in the door; a hunched over form that didn't have horns, wings or tail. That form seemed to run into the edge of that door with its knee, and Lucia winced slightly, reaching down to rub her knee. 

"Did you hurt yourself?" she asked. Lucia grinned.

"No child; tis simply old age, I suppose. Can't do much of anything anymore, with these stiff joints of mine, without feeling the occasional twinge. I envy you young ones, that can move about so easily, why, I can hardly fly anymore, my wings are so stiff." Pixie nodded and smiled sympathetically, mentally filing away the surprising revelation. Lucia was bonded; it was too much of a coincidence that that human had bumped its knee and at the same time she'd felt a twinge of some sort. So, things weren't as clear-cut here as she'd first assumed.

"Sometimes my grandma talks about stuff like that too; I sure hope I can get back to her soon, she's probably worried sick about me," said Pixie. Lucia smiled, and gave her shoulder a light squeeze.

"Everything will be aright, child, don't you worry yourself none," she told her, before stopping before a doorway. "Here's the room you'll be using while you're here, and there are baths down below if you want to freshen up. Now, dinner is at seven sharp other nights, but for tonight just call down as soon as you're ready and I'll have it sent up to you dearie. And if you need anything, just ask one of the girls to get me, all right?" Pixie nodded, and smiled at her, for once not just because it suited the image that she was trying to project. 

"Oh, thank you," she said. Lucia smiled back, and gave her shoulder another squeeze, before heading down the stairs. Pixie waited until the sound of her footsteps had faded, and then opened up the door that the elderly woman had indicated. It swung open to reveal a room that was plain, yet comfortable in its own right. There was a small fire burning in the hearth; above on the mantle there were a half-dozen books. There was a small bed that looked like it might be reasonably comfortable - then again, after two weeks of sleeping on the bare earth, a bed of needles should be comfortable, Pixie thought to herself. Loosening the straps on her pack, Pixie set it down, and rubbed the back of her neck. "Well, 'Holly,' what have we got so far? Your sister is alive and well, and is the queen of, for lack of a better word, pixie nation, and your innkeep is bonded to a human, which you're fairly certain is somewhat against the law..."

Where to start her investigation, she wondered dryly. I've certainly got my choices. Her stomach growled slightly, reminding her that she hadn't eaten breakfast and hadn't had much for dinner the night before. "I think the common room will do well enough for a start," she decided, with a slight grin. Pausing a moment, Pixie ran through a mental checklist of things in her bag; nothing incriminating that she should hide in there. Nodding, she stepped out the door and went back down the stairs. Lucia appeared almost before her foot had landed on the last step, smiling and ushering her toward a table.

"You're just in time; the stew is just now ready," she said. Pixie nodded, smiling, and covertly looking about the common room. There were few patrons; it was still fairly early in the evening. Half a dozen pixie - including one male - sat about one table, drinking and laughing about something or other; a scattered few dotted the other tables, frowning at papers or idly poking at the food before them. Two or three serving girls rested idly against the far wall, keeping an eye on the few patrons just in case they needed anything. Another male stood behind the bar, looking for all the world like he'd rather be somewhere else; the row of stools before the counter were completely empty. Pixie glanced aside, as a slight movement caught her eye; in the far corner sat a solitary pixie with large, sad green eyes, and looking as though she'd just recovered from something. Her skin was a little pale; now and then she would touch her stomach as though it was bothering her.

"Who's that?" she asked without thinking. Lucia glanced over.

"Oh, that's Tara. She was pregnant, you see, but she lost the child only a few days before it would have been born," she replied, her voice just slightly tight. Pixie nodded slowly, and wondered if her luck could possibly be this good. "It hit her a little hard; the healers all thought that she couldn't bear children at all, so she was really overjoyed when she found out that she was with child."

"Oh... How sad... My sister back home had a miscarriage recently... I wonder if maybe she'd like to talk a little. That's what my mom says I'm good at, you know, talking," said Pixie. Lucia leveled a measuring gaze at her, frowning slightly; Pixie let herself blush a little under the scrutiny, and after a moment, Lucia slowly nodded.

"Perhaps she would, child, perhaps she would. Do you know, you have a most remarkable resemblance to our queen, now that I think on it... Why, if your hair and fur were red, instead of black... But enough of my prattling. Come along, I'll introduce you," she said slowly; Pixie breathed a slight sigh of relief. That had been a touch too close. She followed the elderly innkeeper over; Tara looked up as they arrived, brushing at her eyes slightly, as though she'd just been crying. "Tara? How are you feeling, child?" asked Lucia, smiling; playing her part up, Pixie smiled at her shyly. Up close, Tara looked to be about a hundred at most, about the same as Eve and Jana had been.

"Oh, Mrs. Lucia... I... Um, that is... I'm doing... better. Better than I was, I mean. I guess... I guess it's finally starting to... um... sink in, I guess," she replied haltingly. "Um... Who... who's this, Mrs. Lucia?"

"This is Holly, from the south lands. She was caught up in that storm and blown up here. I thought that you might like to show her around the city a bit... You know, help get your mind off the accident," she replied, smiling again. Tara slowly nodded.

"Oh, um... Sure, I... ah, guess. Your name is H-Holly?" she asked. Pixie smiled again, nodding.

"Yes, that's right. The queen was generous enough to put me up here until I'm ready to try flying back home," she explained, "And Mrs. Lucia thought that it might do me some good to see around town. I... my sister just... well, you know. If you wanted to talk... well..." Tara slowly nodded, and smiled just slightly, sniffling.

"Yeah... I think that... I'd like that..."

  


Pixie smiled as she and Tara moved past a large group of pixie in the market square that Tara had led them to the next morning. Lucia had suggested that they start bright and early, rather then as late in the evening as it had been the day before. It had been a very long time since she had last been among so many of her own kind; she had to admit that if felt... good to be around them again. Still, she admonished herself, she did have to keep in mind that she was here on business, not pleasure. And speaking of which, she thought to herself with a touch of chagrin, now might not be such a bad time to get to that business. "My sister was really sad... you know, when she lost the baby," she said; Pixie had been very slowly leading their conversation in this direction, wary of pulling her along too quickly. Tara blinked, but then nodded, looking down.

"Yes... It was quite... quite a blow when I found out that I was with child in the first place; the healers had told me that I wasn't able to have them, because of the terrible sicknesses I'd had when I was only a child. There are a lot of the pixie around here my age that can't, because of that. When I was only ten, we had a very bad bout of a sickness that caused horribly high fevers, and unbearable pains in the stomach. Many of my generation died because of it..." she explained. "Then, when Lucia told me that she thought I was..." For a moment, Tara brightened, losing some of the sadness that seemed to be clinging to her, even now. "I... I was very happy, but very surprised." Then the sadness came back. "Then, just a few days ago, I, ah... Well, I was injured, and... when the healers... finished, they... they said..." Tara trailed off, closing her eyes. Pixie smiled sympathetically, and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

"I understand. That's a lot like what happened to my sister; she was making a midday meal, and had a fainting spell. When she woke up, she thought that something was wrong; a few days later, she found out that she'd lost the baby," she said. "Isn't your husband here to help?" asked Pixie curiously. Tara started, and then gave a rueful, but nervous laugh.

"Oh, you don't understand something about our culture here. Maybe it's different in the south lands, but here there is about one male to every fifty females, so... Oh, how to put this delicately... We... um... share. Quite... Quite freely," she said; Pixie blushed in spite of herself. They shared? There had always been more female pixie in her village then male, but not by that much of a difference. Suddenly that group that Pixie had seen at Lucia's inn gained a whole new meaning. Tara pointed up ahead, to a tall, shield shaped building. "There, in places like that; females can go if they wish to have a child; there are males there that have been selected for their strengths," she explained. "There are a few about the city. The queen, of course, does have her own consort, but only in the sense that she can refuse to, erm, let him... join with another female," finished Tara, blushing a little herself. Pixie cleared her throat, and grinned weakly, nodding slightly, as she looked back toward the building.

It was lucky for her that she did, because if she hadn't, she wouldn't have spotted Leana and Laurel stepping out of it. Wincing, Pixie tugged Tara's arm lightly, toward a stand where a large number of baubles and necklaces had been set out. "Hey, look over here! They're so lovely!" she exclaimed, watching the two pixie from out of the corner of her eye. Dyed hair and fur or not, she didn't feel like taking any chances with those two. "I've never seen designs like this back home," she said, grinning. Tara frowned at them for a moment.

"Oh, those are some pieces made by pixie from the east. They do have a sort of charm, don't they?" she said, smiling slightly. "I've personally always been more partial to pieces from northern pixie; they're more delicate, but some of the patterns are truly beautiful." Pixie gave her a sideways look - and took the chance to watch as Leana and Laurel moved by. 

"Do you know much about jewelry?" she asked; the two pixie disappeared behind a swirl of the crowd. Tara smiled.

"Oh, no - well, yes... well... I guess you might say that it's sort of a hobby for me. Nothing very big, I mean, but just... well, sort of a hobby," she said, before grinning weakly. "I used to have quite the collection, when I was younger..." Pixie smiled, with one last quick glance in the direction that the two pixie had gone to be sure that they were out of sight. 

"My mother used to hate it when she caught me going through her jewelry box; she always said that I got it out of order. I could never understand-"

"Just what order it was supposed to be in?" finished Tara, laughing softly. Pixie smiled again, and nodded, laughing herself. 

"Exactly," she replied. Tara nodded.

"You know, I'm glad that Lucia suggested this... I haven't been out since finding out a few days ago... And, strange as it sounds, that felt like the first time I've laughed in years," she said. Pixie nodded.

"I'm glad that I could help. I know what it feels like... to lose somebody very important," she said, mentally wincing at the slight pause. Tara looked at her a moment, and then smiled again, nodding.

"Thanks," she said, smiling. "So, ah, was there anything else that you wanted to see?" she asked. Now was her chance, decided Pixie.

"Well, actually... Look, is... there somewhere private that we could talk for a moment?" she asked her. Tara nodded.

"Well, sure, back at the inn-" she started. Pixie shook her head.

"No, somewhere where nobody might see us; there is... something that I'd like to talk to you about," she said quietly. Tara blinked, but then slowly nodded. 

"Yeah, I guess we could go to my place..." she said. Pixie nodded, as Tara uncertainly spread her wings. "Can you keep up with me?" Pixie gave her a dry grin.

"You might be surprised," she replied. Tara nodded, and took off the ground; Pixie followed behind her. Tara flew a lazy loop around the city, and then turned in toward the inn. Before they quite reached it, they turned out to the right and dropped down to the ground before a small, homey little cottage. It was back from what looked to be the main road; the next nearest cottage was a good ten feet away from them. Tara stepped up to the doorway, and pushed it open, waving Pixie in behind her. 

"So... what did you want to talk about?" she asked slowly, once the door was closed. Pixie smiled slightly.

"Well, you might want to sit down," she suggested. Tara blinked, but lowered herself into a nearby chair, indicating another one nearby for Pixie. "You know, I was just thinking of something, earlier today. Just... wondering, if you understand me?" she said. Tara slowly nodded.

"Just... wondering..." she agreed.

"Just wondering, that's right. I was wondering... What if, just once, a... female pixie, just... happened to become friends with a human. Only, they became more than just friends," started Pixie. Immediately Tara's eyes started going wide, and she started to pale. "Now," she continued, not wanting to give her a chance to respond, "what if they just happened to... make something more together, and that something more had to be sneaked out of the city that... sincerely frowned upon such something mores. Only, that something more and its carrier didn't make it out as unnoticed as they'd hoped, and two Huntresses were sent after them."

Tara was staring at her now, mouth hanging slightly open; she looked like she was about to start crying again. Pixie sighed inwardly; so she had been right, after all. "Now... just for this little what if, let's say that... somebody... Say, a rogue pixie, who doesn't share the beliefs of those that rule, happened along?" she added, emphasizing it somewhat. Tara started, and then blinked at her several times. "Let's say that this... rogue pixie just happened to be there, not in enough time to save the carrier, but in time to keep that... something more from being harmed. Let's say that... rogue pixie, after helping that... something more, sent that... something more south with a golem friend of hers, while she decided to head toward where she'd seen those Huntresses go to investigate." Tara was frozen in her seat; Pixie decided that it was time for the last little push. "And let's say that that... something more's eyes were green, and that she smiled and laughed at the smallest things?" With a shudder, Tara suddenly began to sob. 

"We didn't know... Mrs. Lucia has been teaching us... about the Bond, and such... There's a tunnel from... from the inn to the section of the city where the humans are... kept. At... at first, I... wasn't sure about it, because... of the law, and the... histories... but then, I... I really started getting... to know one of them. It... It kinda surprised me, especially at first, but... he was nice. Nicer then I would have expected, you... know?" she said slowly. Pixie smiled slightly, and tapped her forehead.

"I know. Believe me, I know, more than you might think," she replied. Tara's eyes widened.

"You mean you...? Who are you, really... You're not from the south land, I'm sure of it. I don't know why, but... you remind me of the Queen..." she said slowly. Pixie smiled sadly.

"The Queen... I remember when she cracked her horn on the table. My name is Pixie, and your 'Queen' is my younger sister... and I think that maybe it's time that she found out who I really am," she said quietly. If Tara's eyes had been wide before, now they were threatening to pop clean out of her head.

"Y... You... You're the Queen... Queen's..." she stammered. Suddenly she took a deep breath, and her eyes started to roll back in her head; wincing, Pixie reached forward and lightly slapped her cheeks to keep her from fainting.

"Come on now Tara, don't go fainting on me, I'm going to need some help," she said. Tara teetered on the edge for a moment, and then shook her head.

"I... all right... I... Is she really safe? I... I had to try sending her with poor Martha; if she'd been discovered here in town, she would have been killed outright, and I... I would have been imprisoned. Mrs. Lucia and the others would have been found," she said slowly. Pixie smiled, and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

"Yes, Tara, she's safe. I sent her with Big Blue; he won't let her be hurt. He's been my closest companion for more than a hundred years; he's going to wait for me to return for a week. Well, six days, now," she said, smiling. "I didn't know her name, so I've been calling her Tori." Tara blinked, and then smiled at her broadly.

"That's all right... Until now, I hadn't thought of a name for her," she said. Pixie laughed in spite of herself, and smiled again.

"All right... I take it that Lucia is a sort of leader for your group? I noticed earlier that she was bonded. Who else is in it?" she asked. Tara blinked.

"Gee... I'm not entirely sure... Let's see, at the last meeting, there were so many of us. There were almost three hundred, last time, and... well, we never all meet at once," she said. Pixie started.

"Almost three hundred? And here I was thinking that this was just a small group..." she muttered. "All right... Are Eve and Jana part of it?" she asked. Tara nodded.

"Yes, they're the ones that introduced me to it," she said. Pixie nodded. 

"All right... first things first, then; let's go back to the inn."

  


"Well, so how did you like seeing the city, Holly?" asked Lucia, as they touched down outside the doorway of the inn. Pixie smiled at her slightly.

"Oh, it was just wonderful... and Tara and I had a long, long talk about babies, and what ifs, and humans... if you follow me?" she said softly. Lucia started and looked to Tara, paling slightly; Tara gave her a broad smile.

"It's ok... I trust her," she replied to the unspoken question. "She said... that she's safe." Lucia frowned, blinking, and then slowly nodded.

"Yes, I believe that I do follow you, Holly... Maybe we should go inside; there are better places to talk then here, no?" she suggested. Pixie smiled at her.

"That's just what I was thinking; I wonder if we could add Eve and Jana to this little conversation," she replied. Lucia nodded, and hustled them all inside, and around the corner of the bar. She paused before the serving girl that was standing there.

"Lena, will you see to it that we aren't disturbed? And send one of the girls to get Eve and Jana, please," she directed. The girl nodded, and Lucia stepped by her. Pausing a moment, and looking about to be sure that nobody was watching, the elderly woman thumbed a small catch, and a section of the wall popped open. She waved Pixie and Tara ahead of her, and then closed it again after slipping through herself. Pixie looked around curiously. They'd entered a corridor, lined with a torch every twenty feet or so, providing ample light for any pixie, or a bonded human. Lucia started leading them down it, even as she started speaking fast. "Who are you really? And what did Tara mean by 'she's safe?' I want some answers; you're not from the south lands, and that I know for a fact; there were no pixie there."

"My real name is Pixie, and I come from a village west of here. The same village as your queen, which is rather convenient, since she's my younger sister. The last time I saw her was when she was seven, on the day that the slavers came for us. Until more recently, I served Moo, as one of his generals; I controlled the area farthest to the south. Then a few months ago, a group of freedom fighters, led by a human boy named Genki came through, and Big Blue and I were defeated," she said, before pausing, and shaking her head, smiling slightly. "I suppose that you could say that I let him win... But the truth of it is that I was tired... Of everything. Tired of life." Then she shook her head again. "Of course, the little twerp somehow got it in his head that, never mind a few minutes before I'd been trying to kill him, it was his job to save me from the building I was trying to bring down on my head," she said, glancing at Lucia. The elderly pixie grinned slightly.

"Go on child; I must admit I'm interested in hearing this now," she said. Pixie nodded.

"It was Big Blue that actually kept us alive - he has been my friend and companion for many, many years - but it was... surprising, to say the least, when I woke up to see Genki above me, after the ruins collapsed. To make a long story short, Big Blue and I left Moo; started working our way northward, at times shadowing Genki's group. One day Holly - a human girl of about seventeen - was taken by Moo; I still haven't figured out what he wanted her for. Genki and his friends attacked Moo's floating castle; somewhere along the line I decided to fly up too; don't ask me why," she said dryly. "When I got there they'd found Holly, but were trapped by Moo and his minions; I got them out; Moo, as you can guess, wasn't all that happy with seeing me again after I'd abandoned him, much less attacked him; he blasted me out of the castle. When I woke up, I found myself held by Genki once again; he and Falcon had caught me as I fell.

"Next time we met up was about two weeks later; Genki and his friends were attacked by a group of Scaled Jells; they knocked him off a cliff. I went after him; when we landed my wings were damaged badly, and I twisted my ankle. Much to my displeasure, Genki once again got it in his head that it was his job to keep me safe," she said, smiling a little wryly. Lucia gave her a puzzled look.

"I'm starting to sense that this boy isn't a normal human," she said. Pixie nodded.

"He's not; he comes from another universe. He was pulled here when Holly unlocked a Mystery Disk, and has been journeying with her and their other friends to find the Phoenix, and stop Moo. As I was saying, he got it in his head that it was his job to keep me safe; and I have to give the kid credit; once he decides to do something, a horde of rampaging golem couldn't stop him, so, naturally, I didn't have a chance," she said, smiling again. "Anyway, the Jells did finally catch up with us, and... " She paused, trailing off. "I remember starting to cast the shield spell, and feeling something very different about it as I did. The shield was far more powerful then it should have been - when the Jell's super beam hit it, I didn't even sense the impact. Then, when I counter attacked, I suddenly realized that I shouldn't have been able to cast the spell I was using..."

"Because it was one of the bond-spells..." breathed Lucia, her eyes going wide. "You have access to the bond-spells?" Pixie nodded. 

"It wasn't until a month and a half later that we started to realize what had happened. Genki had a dream about me and set off with Tiger of the Wind to find me. Big Blue and I had taken refuge in a cave that was within sight of my village while my injuries healed, but they were taking forever. Then one day - the same day, I learned later, that Genki had his dream - I woke up, thinking that I'd heard somebody calling my name, and I could feel a presence coming toward me. I didn't figure it out until Blue reminded me about the bond-spell the next day, didn't put it all together until then; how long I was taking to heal, how tired I'd been... Genki and I had bonded without the words during the Jell attack, but I... I'd blocked it out until it was too late to sever it." Lucia slowly nodded.

"But then where is this boy? He should be with you," she said. Pixie shook her head.

"That wasn't quite the end of the story. You see, while Genki and Tiger were looking for me, Holly and the others had been tricked by a doppelganger. After capturing them, their captain came looking for us," she said, before pausing. "The doppelganger was losing, until it copied me. Then it hit us all with that same spell. I managed to push Genki off the ledge we were on before it hit. I didn't understand it, when I woke up."

"You survived the spell? But... that's not possible!" exclaimed Lucia. Pixie shook her head.

"No, I didn't, and neither did Tiger or Big Blue. But Genki... I don't know how to explain it, exactly. All that I know is that somehow, he brought us back from being Lost Disks, though the bond had been severed," she said. "After, we freed Holly and the others in the village. It... was the first time I'd set foot in my village since I'd been taken; I went to see a statue of my grandmother. Genki managed to find me... Well, shall we just say that he lived up to his usual... protective self," she finished, smiling slightly, and tapping her head lightly. "So, I heard that there might be some humans out this way from a family that the doppelgangers had been holding with Holly and the others; Big Blue and I split off to look this way. Last night, we'd just made camp when we heard sounds of a battle; I got there in time to see the Huntresses kill the woman, but was able to save Tara's daughter. I sent Big Blue south with her, while I came this way to investigate. And I was, to say the least, surprised when I realized that I'd found a half-pixie child." Lucia nodded, sighing.

"Poor Martha; she volunteered to make the run with her, but one of the guardswomen caught wind of it. It's a miracle that you were there," she said, and Tara nodded in agreement. Before Pixie could respond, they came to the end of the corridor; Lucia stepped ahead a bit and thumbed another catch in the wall. "We can speak freely here; it's a sort of meeting house under the actual grounds of the human section of town. We allow them free-reign there; but the entire section is blocked and bordered. Myself and a few of the other First Generation, the oldest of them, those of us that lived with humans for many years before the Slavers came, built this. There... is something that you don't know. With each generation of pixie, our powers have grown weaker and weaker. Poor Eve and Jana honestly need those spears that they carry; their lightning and shield magic is simply too weak to do more than stun, anymore. We... I believe that it is because the Bond is outlawed here; I think that it gives us not only access to the bond-spells, but strengthens those powers which are inherent. We... We need the human component... I assume you've noticed the incredible disparity between males and females here?" Pixie nodded.

"Tara said that it was about fifty to one, yes," she said. "I'd been wondering about that myself; there was a difference in the village as well, but not that much. At most it was three to one." Lucia nodded.

"Did you know that a union between a half-human male and a full pixie almost always produces a full blooded male?" she asked. Pixie raised her eyebrow at that.

"Now, that I didn't know," she replied. Lucia sighed.

"It's something that we researched in the city that I came from. Nine times out of ten, when a half-breed male mated with a full pixie female, a male, fully pixie child was born. We... thought, at the time, that it was just because a full pixie and a full pixie are most likely to give birth to a girl, but... Having seen the population here, I began to wonder if that was all there was to it. And every year, the disparity gets worse. I started to realize... that part of the reason was because there were no longer any half-breed males in the mix. They... were a balance," she finished quietly. Pixie frowned, nodding. It did, in a way, make sense; thinking back, she remembered that most of the boys in her villages had been either half-breeds or fully human; there weren't that many full pixie males.

"So all this time... You've been culling yourselves out," she said. Lucia nodded.

"That's what I'm afraid of. We need that human factor; both for our abilities, and for our survival," she said. Pixie nodded again. 

"Right. I take it that Laurel and Leana are from an earlier generation, then?" she asked. "It was Laurel's lightning blast that killed Martha." Lucia thought for a moment.

"Leana... is from the fifth generation, I think; Laurel is second," she replied. Pixie frowned.

"Great..." she muttered. Behind them, Eve and Jana stepped into the room, and then blinked as they saw Pixie. 

"Holly, how did you - Mrs. Lucia, why didn't you say it was something so urgent in your message?" asked Eve. Lucia waved them off.

"It's all right you two. Her real name is Pixie, and she's the 'rogue' that attacked Laurel and Leana. According to her Tara's daughter is safe," she said. "And that the Queen is her younger sister." Eve started, and stared at her, but then slowly nodded.

"She.. does resemble her... In the eyes."

"I dyed out my hair and fur," said Pixie impatiently. "Look, I need some help from you two. Can you get all of your group together? All of them, the humans included?" she asked. Lucia, Tara, Eve and Jana looked at each other, and slowly nodded.

"Yes, that shouldn't be too much of a problem, but it will take at least until noon tomorrow," said Lucia. "What for?" she asked.

"First, I'm going to take a bath, and get this dye out of my hair. After that, I'll explain," she said. "Oh, there was one other question I had, something that I should have asked as soon as I thought of it. Are there any tigers in your forest?" Eve shook her head.

"No, we take special care to hunt them down, and keep them out of it. There is too much of a chance that they might be one of Gray Wolf's pack," she replied. Pixie frowned.

"I was afraid that you were going to say that," she muttered. "All right, go on; I don't think that we have much time," she said. Eve and Jana looked to Lucia; she nodded, and they hurried off again. Lucia looked at her.

"Tigers?" she asked, curiously. Pixie scowled.

"I wasn't thinking, when I was flying over your forest. I saw a purple-furred tiger, one of Gray Wolf's. And he was heading away from Tularia. He darted under cover as soon as he saw me," she explained. Tara blinked.

"So?"

" You don't know Gray Wolf like I do, and you don't know Gray Wolf's brother either. I do, and they're both very, very insistent on one thing: You don't come back until you've accomplished your mission. That tiger wouldn't have been leaving the forest unless he'd found what - where he'd been looking for. And what's the only thing in this forest for him to find?" she said flatly. Lucia and Tara looked at each other, paling.

"Tularia."

  


Pixie toweled the last of the moisture off of her skin, and grinned slightly, glad to be back to her red headed, and red furred self. She didn't mind dying out her hair now and then, when she needed to go unrecognized, but it was always a relief when she went back to those flame red locks. Maybe they did tend to mark her out on a battlefield, but she knew that she really wouldn't have it any other way. Shaking her head, and spraying droplets of water from her still wet hair, she smiled again, though more sadly. Lucia had told her that all but two of their members had assembled. It hadn't escaped her that she might be about to attack, perhaps even end the life of the only remaining blood relation she had. Granted, she hadn't seen her for more than two centuries, but... Pixie sighed, and closed her eyes, as she started drying out her hair. 

No, the simple fact was that she would do what she had to do, and she knew it. Family or no, she had a job to do, and she could not... would not let her emotions get into the way. That was a simple truth that she had long ago had burned into her... quite literally. "No. I'm too far into this to back out now," she muttered, though in truth she knew that she'd been in too far the second she'd got between Laurel and Leana and Tori.

Finishing with her hair, she tossed the towel aside and walked over to where she'd left her bag. Frowning a moment, she pulled out her usual red tunic and bottoms. As she started pulling them on, carefully threading her wings through their holes, she thought again of Tori. If she knew Big Blue, right about now he'd be trying to decide if he should come after her despite her telling him not to or stay there. That, and, she thought with a sudden, wry grin, doing his best to take care of the tiny baby. For a moment, she was sorely tempted to put off her plan for a day, while she sent Tara south to retrieve the child, but decided against it. She wouldn't be doing either of them any favors, if she'd been right about that tiger that she'd seen.

Bah! She wouldn't be doing any of them any favors if she didn't get her mind on the here and now. At first, she'd been debating a rather more violent solution to the task at hand, that of fighting their way into the palace, but now she wasn't so sure that that was necessary. Beyond the obvious exception of their defense force, the city seemed in general fairly peaceful. On the other hand, she reminded herself, under that seemingly peaceful surface she'd managed to find a rather sizable faction of dissenters.

As she finished hooking the last clasp of her tunic together, she caught a slight glitter out of the corner of her eye; something that had managed to work its way to the top of her pack despite the fact that she had specifically placed it on the bottom. Frowning, Pixie, reached down, and withdrew the small, thin box. She knew what was inside, of course; it was a small, silver chain, long enough to be worn about her neck, but meant to rest on her forehead, so that the shell supported by the delicate links sat between and just above her eyes. Slowly, she opened the box, remembering. Toril and she had been at the beach; they'd been little more than toddlers, and had found a strange pair of shells. They were small; small enough that even their tiny hands could fully close about them without crushing them. But the strange part about them was that they fit together in such a way that the pastel colors formed a bright rainbow. 

They'd shown the shells to their grandmother, who'd seemed quite surprised and pleased. She had asked if she could have them for a little while, and the next time they saw them, on the winter equinox, their grandmother had placed them on a chain; silver for Pixie, and gold for Toril. She'd given the necklaces to them, and said that they were a reminder that, even apart, she and Toril were still together.

Pixie had somehow managed to keep it hidden from her long string of masters; sometimes she'd find herself looking at it, and wondering if she would ever see her sister again, or any of her family. Well, she thought to herself sadly, I did see her again, but not under the circumstances I'd hoped for. Still, after a moment, she carefully withdrew it from the slender case, and gently settled it over her head. At first, the slight jostling of the shell proved to be a touch distracting, but after a moment, she hardly noticed it any more. Closing the case, and tucking it away, Pixie turned to the mirror. 

Looking back at her was a young, beautiful pixie with gray eyes that had seen too much, and hands that, to her eyes, had just a touch of a crimson stain to them. An old, small shell hung suspended from a thin silver chain at the point of her flame red bangs... And somehow, it seemed to Pixie that she was looking at the real her for the first time in a long, long time. Yes, those gray eyes had seen too much, and yes, to those same eyes her hands were stained a red far different from the crimson of her hair, but... Just off to the side, she thought that she could see the faint image of a young boy, beaming a smile that was too big for his twelve year old face. Somehow, that managed to wash away that stain on her hands, and that look of too much in her eyes. Almost, she could feel that boy's hand on her shoulder... Pixie shook her head, and the vision disappeared, as she smiled slightly wryly.

"I am not going to let that twerp be the only reason I keep going," she muttered. After a moment, she found herself adding a silent, 'Thanks Genki,' to the comment, and sighed in spite of herself. "All right, enough dilly-dallying, Pixie. Time to get things going." Straightening, Pixie pushed open the door. Lucia, who had been waiting on the other side, gasped as she saw her.

"Great Forest... You could be the Queen's twin!" she breathed. Pixie shook her head.

"Just her sister, Lucia. Just her sister. Is everybody together?" she asked. Lucia nodded.

"Yes, including the humans," she replied. Pixie nodded.

"Good," she said, before pausing. "You do realize that no matter what happens today, things around here are going to change forever," she said quietly. Lucia nodded at her, smiling sadly.

"She's not a bad queen, or an evil one, child... Just hurt deeply by what the slavers did. Those of us that are older... We still remember the kinder years, when we did live in peace... It is our shame that we did not speak out sooner. We should have," she said quietly. Pixie nodded.

"I know. What can I say? It took being beaten, and then 'saved' by a human kid to get it through my head. Toril... I don't think that she had that same chance here. In exchange, though, she didn't have to cause the pain and injustice that I did at Moo's orders," she replied. "But wrong is wrong. I was wrong, and she is wrong in this." Then she shook her head. "In any case, it's too late to step back now. If the timing is right, then that attack force that tiger is going to bring back will end up helping us, but only if we get moving now." Lucia nodded again, and they headed down the hall, toward the secret entrance to the tunnel.

Now, Pixie had always found that usually, just as she thought that she was in the clear with a plan, something always happened to mess things up. When she was a kid, she'd gotten sick the day before one of her closest friend's birthday parties. Many things like that had happened, and it was almost always at the worst possible time. And, as usual, something did. Just as she and Lucia started to cross the common room, the door swung open and Laurel, followed closely by Leana. Groaning, Pixie shoved Lucia back, and leapt forward just as Laurel's gaze fell on her.

"You!" she exclaimed, raising her hands. Pixie sighed, wondering how exactly she'd been born with the wonderful luck that she had, and got ready for a brawl.

"Wait, wait!!" shouted Lucia, quickly scrambling in between them. "Wait, Laurel! Wait, Pixie! Do not fight!" she exclaimed, putting one hand out toward both of them. "Be at ease Laurel. Be at ease, Leana. Please!" Frowning, Pixie slowly straightened, but kept her spell ready, as she was sure the other two were. Lucia turned to her. "I'm sorry Pixie, I wasn't thinking; they are part of our group as well; it completely escaped me that what happened would cause a problem.

"Lucia, what's going on here? That's the rogue that hurt Laurel so badly! How did she get in here!" growled Leana. Lucia turned back to them, making soothing gestures. 

"Please, it wasn't what you think. Come, come, to the meeting; I'll explain to all three of you," she said, smiling weakly. Frowning, Laurel and Leana slowly approached her. 

"I can't wait to hear this one," muttered Leana, giving Pixie an icy glare. She returned the look evenly, having had too much practice with sniveling, bumbling subordinates as Moo's general. Lucia smiled again, and then opened the doorway. Laurel looked Pixie up and down, and then frowned, stepping ahead of her. Leana stubbornly waited for Pixie to step ahead, until Lucia cuffed her lightly on the arm, and gave her an admonishing look.

"Don't be rude child, I told you that what happened was a miss-understanding. Come on, we don't have time for such childishness," she said. To Pixie's surprise, the younger pixie bowed her head, blushing, and nodded in embarrassment. Lucia sighed, and then looked to Pixie. "You see, these two were sent after Martha purposely; from time to time, the queen has been known to send one of the Elite Guard to shadow the Huntresses when such an 'escape' happens, and it is their duty to make things look as real as possible, just in case."

"If you hadn't have hit me, my shot would have gone wide, like I'd intended; Martha had been expecting it to go to the left, as we'd planned before hand," said Laurel softly. "And by the way, you throw one heck of a dive bomb." Pixie winced in spite of herself; Lucia gave her shoulder a squeeze before she had the chance to speak.

"It was not your fault Pixie; you couldn't have known what it was," she said, before grinning comfortingly. "Perhaps you even did a little good; I doubt poor Laurel will forget to keep an eye on the sky above again," she added. Pixie started in spite of herself, and gave her an incredulous look; Laurel missed a step as well and looked at Lucia dryly. For herself, the elderly woman smiled in satisfaction. "I do apologize; in my old age, I find that things slip my mind at the worst possible times." Pixie sighed, shaking her head. 

"Will surprises never cease?" she muttered.

"I don't trust her, Lucia," said Leana, favoring Pixie with another dark look.

"You won't be the first not to trust me," replied Pixie, before Lucia had the chance to speak. "But use your head. I came across two pixie attacking a human woman who was carrying a new born. That's all I knew. I acted to try to stop you. I didn't know the full of the situation, and I'm sorry for attacking you, but for the information I had, I acted well within the rules of battle - don't give me that look kid. You can't tell me that you don't know the rules of battle. Considering that Toril seems to have imported a lot from our village, I'll bet I probably know them a good deal better than you, since they're the rules that our mother taught us as bed time stories!" she snapped, finally letting a little bit of her temper show through. Laurel and Leana both started back, coming to an at attention stance before they realized what they were doing. Lucia laughed softly.

"If the family resemblance wasn't enough, I'd recognize that temper anywhere," she said quietly. Pixie gave her a dry look.

"Family trait," she replied.

"Whoa, whoa, hang on a second..." said Laurel, giving her a surprised look. "When you say Toril, you don't mean..."

"Your queen. My younger sister," she answered. Leana and Laurel looked at each other, Leana swallowing hard, as Laurel slowly nodded. 

"That's why I kept thinking that I knew your face," she said quietly. "I only got a quick look at it when we first... bumped into each other, but I knew that it looked familiar." Pixie nodded.

"I haven't seen her since the slavers came to our village," she replied. "Look, this is beside the point. As long as you're here, you can do me a favor. I saw a tiger the other day, on my way here. By now, he's probably on his way back, and he won't be alone. I need you two to get the rest of the guard mobilized - don't tell them what for, just say that the queen decided to have a surprise drill or something, but have them ready!" Leana opened her mouth, but Laurel beat her to it.

"Yes; WE will see to it, won't we Leana?" she said, giving her companion a flat look. Leana scowled, but nodded. "We'll go to that now," she added, before looking at her. "Perhaps we'll have time for a more proper sparring, after this is over Pixie, if you're interested; until then, good luck." Pixie nodded to her.

"Good luck to you too," she said quietly. Laurel nodded, and then pulled Leana along with her. Pixie shook her head. "I still can't decide if they're just friends or sisters," she muttered.

"Mother and daughter," replied Lucia absently. Pixie blinked in spite of herself, and then shook her head again, as they reached the doorway into the meeting room. 

"Here we go," she said, summoning up every last shred of command she'd learned during her tenure as Moo's general.

  


Of all the things Pixie had pictured herself doing a year before, walking at the head of a column of pixie and humans, through the streets of a city built by and for pixie wasn't one of them. Perhaps leading one of Moo's armies to victory over the southern continent, or maybe squashing an internal insurrection, but definitely... Most definitely not leading a column of pixie and humans in what amounted to an rebellion against her own sister. Her sister the queen, she added dryly. Lucia, walking beside her, looked around a little nervously; they were starting to gather quite the crowd.

"When I said that, as long as they have an escort, humans are allowed out of their section, this isn't quite what I'd had in mind..." she said quietly. Pixie gave her a sidelong look.

"Consider the alternative... We could be fighting our way into the capital. There are too many spectators this way; the Guard won't outright attack us with all of them watching," she replied. The elderly woman nodded slowly. "If I can, I'm going to avoid bloodshed today, and I'll do whatever I can to prevent it," she added, after a moment. If it is possible, she thought. It might not be; if she was scarred as deeply as me. Not now, after so many years of being 'queen.'

"We can hope," said Lucia quietly. Pixie nodded, as they continued their walk through the streets. Up above a few Guardswomen started circling lazily about; Pixie thought that she recognized Eve's greenish-blue mane of hair, and Jana's much shorter blond; two others seemed to ignore the group completely, heading east, toward the sea.

"Looks like we've started to attract some imperial attention," she said quietly. Lucia nodded.

"Friends of Eve and Jana; if fighting does break out they said they were sure they'd side with us," she replied. Pixie nodded, impressed; she'd underestimated the two younger pixie. She wouldn't have expected them to think that far ahead for the simple fact that the didn't have experience in this sort of thing. More and more pixie gathered, staring at the strange column in curiosity, as they turned on to the road which led to the royal lodge. Ahead of them, a line of Guardswomen stood, one of the elite guards standing before them. Pixie raised her eyebrow.

"And there would be our welcoming committee," she said dryly. She continued to lead the march forward, until there was about twenty feet between them and the guards. Waving the others to a stop, Pixie walked forward; the elite guard doing the same. They met roughly between the two groups. Her opposite was tall, for a pixie; topping her out by a hand and a half. She had blond, almost white hair that ended sharply just above her shoulders, and almost lavender colored eyes.

"Should I presume that I'm speaking to the Pixie that roughed up Huntress Laurel?" she asked. Pixie nodded, frowning at her slightly. She looked... familiar.

"I've seen you before, but not here... How long have you known Toril?" she replied softly. The guardswoman smiled slightly

"Nearly as long as I knew you. About a year less, Pixie," she replied. Suddenly it dawned on her who she was.

"Leona! But I saw them cut you down!" she said slowly. Leona had baby sat both her and her sister many times; she'd been a close friend, once. But when the slavers had taken their village, Pixie had seen one of the slaver's soldiers just as he ran her through on his sword. Leona shook her head.

"Your grandmother found me before it was too late and healed me; I passed out during the healing and when I woke up I'd been taken too," she replied quietly. Pixie nodded; there wasn't anymore that needed to be said. They both understood. "What about you? The last I heard, you were one of Moo's generals, controlling to the south; I was tracking a few of Moo's henchmen and overheard a conversation about one of his most fierce and... most temperamental new commanders," she said, smiling a little dryly. Pixie grinned in spite of herself.

"I was, but somebody woke me up," she said. "Or should I say, dragged me kicking and screaming back to the good side," she added after a moment, shaking her head. "That's beside the point right now, though. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that you still haven't told her that it's me; she certainly didn't recognize me." Leona shook her head.

"No, I haven't," she replied quietly. "In fact, she doesn't know that I'm out here now, or that you're on your way. I came out to try and stop you; this is the way that we've lived for almost two and a half centuries now. Maybe it isn't perfect, but we are at peace." Pixie shook her head quietly.

"You may be at peace, but it's too fragile like this. I know from experience. You're fooling yourself if you think that it can last forever like this," she said. "I thought that I could never be defeated by a twelve year old boy and his friends, and look where I am now. The fact that he was right, and that I was wrong wasn't lost on me." She shook her head. "Believe me, I know what you and the others went through." Leona nodded, sighing.

"Yes, I imagine you would, and for far longer. But I can't let you go any farther," she replied. "I will not let Tularia be torn apart, as our village was." Pixie smiled slightly.

"Don't you see, Leona? It's going to be torn apart, one way or the other. What do you think will happen if all those watchers see you attack us? There are more than seven hundred in that group, both pixie and humans. If you attack them, what will the people think? Let us pass without trouble... at least my way, there is a chance this can be settled peacefully," she replied softly. Leona frowned back at the column Pixie had led there, and then shook her head, giving her a rueful smile.

"You always did have a knack for out maneuvering people, Pixie; that's why I could never beat you at chess," she told her, before shaking her head. "Heed my warning; you will not have an easy time of changing Toril's mind. I hope you are ready..." Pixie nodded quietly.

"As ready as I have to be," she replied; Leona's eyes turned sad. Then she stepped back, and waved off the line of guardswomen. Pixie nodded to her, as she signaled the others up. "Maybe, once this is over, we'll get a chance to talk again, if you still want to." Leona nodded.

"Yeah. Maybe," she said. After a moment, she offered her hand to Pixie; Pixie smiled, and shook it. "Good luck, Pixie." She nodded, and then walked past her, as the rest of the column caught up to her. Lucia gave her a curious look.

"I thought for sure that we were in for a fight there; how did you convince her to let us by?" she asked. Pixie shook her head.

"It's a long story. I'll tell you if we get through this alive," she told her. "I'm going to go into the royal hall alone. Wait for me outside." Lucia opened her mouth to protest, but Pixie looked at her. After a moment, Lucia looked away, nodding.

"Yes... I imagine that might be best..." she said quietly. Pixie nodded.

"Thank you," she said softly. They led the group down the street, the royal hall drawing closer with every step, until finally it loomed before them. Pixie paused a moment, looking up at it, and then took a deep breath. Slowly, she started up the steps, leaving the others behind her as she approached the doorway. Two hundred and forty years, from the time that she'd been taken by the slavers; only two days since she'd realized that her sister was alive and in front of her, and now, she was going forward to do something that might result in one of their deaths... No, she thought to herself. Perhaps in the bath, she could pretend that it wouldn't effect her if it came to that, but the simple truth was that it would. She would do it if she had to, but she wanted to avoid it at all costs. Unconsciously grasping at the dim sensation of the bond in the back of her mind, Pixie pushed open the door, and stepped in.

Six guardswomen immediately popped out from the hiding places that she'd marked out the day before, spears whirling into place; they'd barely taken two steps toward her when her chain lightning spell slashed through them. The guards dropped to the ground, two of them spasming randomly. Pixie shook her head ruefully; that hadn't even been a full power blast, and it had still knocked them flat. Pausing for a split second to check that they would recover, Pixie then moved forward to the great double doors. Reaching over, Pixie pulled the toll cord that she had seen Eve pull the other day; once again, the doors swung open from inside. The 'queen' didn't even look up, as Pixie stepped in, until abruptly one of the red-sashed elite guardswomen saw the out cold guards behind her and gasped, reaching for her sword. Forgetting her for the moment, Pixie spun, raising her hands and flinging blasts of lightning at both of the guards behind the doorway before they could react; still moving, Pixie dove forward just fast enough to feel a sword swipe across just short of taking her tail off. Rolling, she came back up, already flinging another lightning bolt; it caught the guard hard in her midsection and threw her across the room. As she reached her feet, the last two guards finally started catching up, drawing their blades and starting toward her; Pixie switched spells and froze the floor just as they stepped onto it. Caught off guard, they went tumbling down; two more lightning jolts put them out of commission. She paused to straighten her shirt slightly, and then looked at Toril.

She was just starting to stand up and out of her throne. Pixie almost smirked; if she had been an assassin, the 'Queen' would have already been dead. But she wasn't an assassin, and her goal wasn't death. Lucky for Toril. "What is the meaning of this! How dare you-" she began, as she straightened. Then she suddenly got a good look at Pixie, and froze, paling. For a long moment, they stared at each other. Pixie was sure that she could imagine what was going through her mind; after all, they'd been going through her's for the past two days. "You... You can't... You can't be you..." she slowly breathed, even as she slowly touched her fingertips to her forehead, where the shell chain rested on Pixie's forehead. Pixie waited, while she fought through her disbelief. "You... That shell... But..." Slowly, she sank back down into the throne; Pixie waited until she'd fully settled into it to speak.

"When you were three, you tripped over a fold in the rug, and hit your horn on the table. You had a headache for three days, and every year, the crack that you'd gotten when it hit grew a little longer. Grandmother tried every trick in the book to get it to stop, but it never failed to keep growing. She used to joke that you'd never have to look for a place to tuck a pencil away in," said Pixie quietly; Toril's face became paler with every word. "When I was seven, and you were six, we found a pair of shells that fit together; Grandmother collected them from us, and then gave them back to us, one on a golden chain, one on a silver chain, on the winter solstice." She shook her head slightly. "We didn't get to see the next winter solstice, because before it came the Slave Masters came." Toril's mouth worked a few times, no sound coming out; she paused, swallowing hard, and then tried again.

"But... how..." she started, before swallowing hard again. "You can't be who you say you are. My sister died more than two hundred years ago," she whispered hoarsely. Pixie restrained an urge to walk over and shake her.

"Wake up Toril," she growled, emphasizing the name; she unconsciously drew herself up, having spent over two hundred years of being called queen, or your majesty, or highness. "Should I tell you what happened the night they came for us? The last time I saw you? How they killed our grandmother?" she snapped; Toril jerked with every example. "Maybe you'd prefer something a little more lighthearted? How about the day you accidentally knocked over mother's favorite vase, and I told her that I'd done it so you didn't get in trouble?"

"I... only knocked it over... because you tripped and stumbled... into me," she murmured softly. Pixie shook her head, smiling slightly.

"And I only tripped because you stopped so suddenly in front of me," she replied. "Do you believe that it's really me now?" she asked her quietly. "Or should we continue this?" Toril slowly shook her head.

"No... How.. how did you get here, Pixie?" she asked after a moment.

"Me? Oh, I was in the area, and ran across a pair of pixie sent to kill a child. I stopped them, and then decided to investigate. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the 'Queen' they spoke of was my own sister - and that she didn't recognize me, disguise or no," said Pixie quietly. Toril started, and a low flicker of anger flashed in her eyes.

"I thought 'Holly' reminded me of you, but I didn't want to believe. And child? Perhaps you mean that half-breed that I sent Huntresses Laurel and Leana after? Such an abomination doesn't deserve to exist, much less here," she growled, slipping finally back into the Queen guise.

"Abomination??" snarled Pixie, startling herself and Toril. "A living, breathing child, who I, still thinking you were long ago dead, named after you. Don't you dare give me any lines about what the humans did to us, because believe me, I've seen it all. For that matter, I've done it all right back, when the situation was reversed."

"Don't stand there and tell me you can forgive them," snapped Toril. "For thirty years, I-"

"For two hundred years, I slaved away for them," roared Pixie, silencing Toril in midsentence; her younger sister stared agape. "Thirty years, Toril? Don't make me laugh. That's barely even enough for me to notice! That's nothing compared to what I went through! And you know what? I do hate humans, more than you could possibly imagine, so don't you dare tell me that I don't understand," she growled at her, crossing the distance between them and poking her hard in the chest. "You want to know what I did after I was finally free? Moo found me. I'm sure you know who he is, don't you? He certainly decided I had some worth; he made me one of his generals, and put me in charge of the southern expanse of his domain," she told her, in a low voice that was far more menacing than her earlier shout. Straightening, Pixie turned and walked away from her, to give her a second to recompose. 

"So you gave your soul to the devil," muttered Toril. Pixie spun, scowling at her, and Toril jumped again.

"Your right, I did. For forty years, I did exactly to them what they'd done to us. I forced them to slave away mining Mystery Disks for Moo's empire. I beat them, I killed them with my own hands. I tortured them just because I could. If I... wanted one of them, they didn't have much say in the matter. Does any of this sound familiar to you, Toril? Forty years, that's how I lived, causing them as much pain as I possibly could... For a time, I even thought that it helped," she finished quietly, looking away and pausing for a moment. When she turned back to Toril, she knew that her eyes were a touch watery. "Why don't you go ahead and ask how I ended up out here, when I had such a perfect existence there," she told her quietly.

"Why... why did you come here?" she asked slowly.

"I was beaten. By a twelve year old human boy," she told her. Toril's eyes narrowed, but Pixie didn't give her the chance to speak. "After he'd won, I tried bringing the ruins that I was in down on my head. Moo certainly wouldn't have forgiven me, and I was tired. Tired of the humans, tired of the monsters, and tired of myself. I figured that several tons of ruins should be just enough to end it all. Want to know the funny part about it? As the rest of his friends ran to get out of the ruins before they fell, he turned back and tried to shield me with his own body." Toril started, seemingly caught off guard by that; Pixie pressed on. "Oh, naturally, that wasn't what saved me; if he'd have been the only one there then all he would have accomplished would have been being crushed right along with me; the one that really saved us was Big Blue." She shook her head.

"We've bumped into each other a few times now; he and his friends - Tiger of the Wind, Hare, Golem, Suezo and Moochi, and Holly, who's name I borrowed, have been trying to stop Moo. I was just the first of his generals that they met. Right about now, they should be meeting Gray Wolf - did I mention? Gray Wolf is Tiger's brother. Genki is the one that keeps them going," she said. Pixie shook her head. "About a month and a half ago, they were attacked by some scaled jells; he went over a cliff, and I went after him. At the time, I wasn't sure why... After all, I hated humans, didn't I?" she asked. "Hated them for what they'd done to me, and still, I found myself trying to save him, as he'd tried... and succeed to save me from what I'd become. I paid for it; twisted my ankle, and shredded my wings. I'll bet you can't guess what that, 'worthless, untrustable' human did next."

"I'm sure he left you to die," snarled Toril. Pixie shook her head.

"No. I tried to make him leave. Oh, believe me, I tried everything short of blasting him away. He absolutely refused to, no matter what I did, and I ended up letting him help me get away from the Jells. Of course, in the end they did catch up with us, but by then, something had happened, something that I would never have expected. Something I didn't let myself think about until it was too late to change it, as I found out about a month and a half later. That child, that human that I 'hated' so much, the one who defeated me, and I, who swore that I'd never trust a human, had Bonded." Toril was on her feet in an instant, flinging her hand out at her.

"Blasphemer! How dare you speak of such filth in-"

"SIT DOWN!" shouted Pixie over her, flinging a very lightly powered bolt at her. It caught Toril in the shoulder, forcing her back into the seat; she gave Pixie an incredulous look, as she rubbed her shoulder.

"You attacked me..." she whispered. Pixie scowled at her.

"This is going to end my way, one way or the other, Toril," she replied softly. "One way, or the other," she repeated, letting her eyes go hard so that Toril wouldn't mistake her meaning; her sister paled, and slowly nodded. "You know, after that, Big Blue and I went to that cave you and I found, so long ago; we stayed there, while I healed. I couldn't believe it, when one day, after this strange, odd feeling had been sticking with me for about a day, when Big Blue suggested the impossible, but it turned out to be true. I'm sure you remember what Grandmother told us, about it forming on its own. That's what had happened, only I had blocked it out until it was too late to change it."

"His fault; It must have been his fault somehow," said Toril weakly, but Pixie knew that she knew that couldn't be. Both the human and the pixie had to agree to the bonding for it to form.

"No, it wasn't," said Pixie gently. "It took me a long time to understand that, but he pointed it out to me. The Bond couldn't have formed unless I wanted it to, however subconsciously it was. And the simple truth is that I know, deep down, I did. I'd decided the second he tried to throw himself over me to 'save' me from the falling ruins. No Toril, he didn't do it to me. If anything, I did it to him. Not just once, but twice." She shook her head. "I honestly wish that he was here, so I could show you the truth of it, but he has his own battles for the moment, as I mentioned." She shook her head again.

"In any case, that's not why I'm here, but it does bring me to my point. Do you have any idea just how sick I felt, when I realized, not only were those two hunting a baby, but a half-pixie? How sick I felt, the next day, when I was escorted in here, and realized that the 'queen' that had ordered her death was you? No, Toril... I was wrong, when I tried to take my vengeance on the humans Moo put me in charge of, but what you did wasn't just wrong, it was evil. Don't you know that all you're doing is helping Moo, when it comes down to it? He feeds on hate! Maybe I served him, but you are feeding him just as much as I ever did," she told her.

"You know nothing of this place. Yes, such half-breeds are outlawed, but there is a purpose!" retorted Toril. Pixie raised her eyebrow. 

"Oh, there is? Tell me something, 'Queen' Toril. If there is such a great purpose in it, then how did I find an entire underground of your 'subjects' that are going back to the old ways, forgetting the hate?" she asked. Toril snarled at her.

"Liar! My people would not let themselves join with such filth!" she snapped.

"Then how is it that I came across two pixie, who, at your command, were sent to kill a half-pixie child?" she countered. The question stopped Toril cold, and Pixie decided it was time for the final strike. "Come here, Toril. There's something you should see." Toril gave her a defiant look, but it slowly melted away, as Pixie stared at her. Finally, she slowly rose, and walked down the dais. Pixie waited until they had come up even, and then walked toward the door with her. When they reached the outer door, Pixie reached out, and then paused. "Keep in mind what I said about which one of us truly chose to Bond, Toril," she told her, before pushing open the door. 

Toril staggered visibly, as it swung open to show the paired pixie and humans, even old Lucia, and her equally old bondmate, jerking with every new face that was revealed, until finally she saw Laurel and Leana. Slowly, Toril sank to her knees.

"You have destroyed us," she whispered softly. Pixie squatted down beside her, shaking her head.

"No. I've woken you up. This group has been here far longer than me. All that I did was pull it out from hiding," she said softly. "I woke you up, just as I was woken up, no matter how much I wanted to stay asleep. Times change, Toril; don't you think it's time for you to follow. You say you are the leader of these people... then prove it, and let go. What the humans did to us was wrong... but that was two hundred and forty years ago, and only thirty of you even remember it. And even of them, there are some who see that it's time to start again." Pixie touched her shoulder lightly, and Toril looked at her in surprise. "Genki said it best, when he said, ' Even if we beat Moo, will we truly have won, if humans and monsters still don't trust each other?' Moo can't be defeated, until somebody takes that step, and lets go."

Toril didn't get the chance to answer, as somebody shouted, "Moo's troops! They've found the Forest Wall, and are heading this way!!" Toril jerked upward, looking around in surprise; mentally Pixie cursed. It was too soon! Thinking fast, Pixie looked at her sister.

"You have a chance to turn this to a rout; there are just over three hundred and fifty bonded pixie and humans here. But they'll only fight if you let go of the past," she told her. Toril looked at her for a long moment, eyes racing. 

"I..."

"You don't have time to think about it! Yes, or no. Tie yourself to the past, or look toward the future?" she snapped. Toril looked at her a moment more, and then bowed her head.

"Let them have their way, and be it on their heads what happens," she whispered. Pixie looked up at Lucia, and smiled, as she squeezed Toril's shoulder.

"Grandmother would have been proud of you, Toril," she told her quietly. Toril jerked, but let Pixie pull her up. "You're still their queen, Toril; they are waiting for you," she added, before stepping aside. Toril gave her another, shorter look, and then shook her head, looking at the assembled onlookers.

"Well? What are you waiting for? Tularia is under attack! To the Forest Wall, all of you!"

  


Lucia dropped in beside her, as Pixie slowly circled above the incoming force of monsters. She'd seen what looked like Moo's standard troops; a few squads of jells, naga, and weeds, along with a peppering of the stronger creatures; golem, and a half dozen black dinos. And tigers... Many, many tigers, including the one leading the strike force; Pixie had been only half disappointed to see that it wasn't Gray Wolf. It really would be a rout; this force just couldn't take down a city the size of Tularia, and Pixie knew it; the monsters simply weren't strong enough to handle an army of pixies' innate powers. She sighed, and signaled Lucia up higher with her. No, Gray Wolf might not be there, but she just knew that he had a trick up his proverbial sleeve. He was too cunning to send such an obviously weak force without one.

"You seem worried, Pixie," observed Lucia.

"I am. That's not nearly enough to take down Tularia; I know it, and I'm sure that Gray Wolf knows it. He's too careful for something like this," she said.

"Maybe he just made a mistake; underestimated the city's size," she suggested. Pixie shook her head.

"No. Gray Wolf doesn't make mistakes. He thinks about a battle from ten different directions before he even considers getting into it, and when he's the one attacking, he attacks with a force at least three times the size he actually needs. Tiger of the Wind is like that too, when he can; when he can't, he intimidates his enemy to defeat," she told her. Lucia gave her a curious look.

"Tiger of the Wind?" she asked.

"Gray Wolf's older brother; one of Genki's friends. Gray Wolf is the commander that he is because Tiger taught him. He taught him very, very well," she replied. "No... I know that he's planning something, because that force just can't handle it." Lucia frowned; Pixie shook her head. But what... I know that I'm missing something here. It's got to be something simple, something so glaringly obvious I can't help but overlook..." Suddenly, she trailed off, and slapped her forehead. 

"What? What is it?" asked Lucia.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid... Gray Wolf, if Genki and the others don't kill you, I will!" she growled, diving fast toward the approaching army. Raising her hands, Pixie flung a peppering of lightning bolts at them; the blasts passed right through the monsters as though they weren't even there, and of course, they weren't. "Illusions! I knew it!" she muttered, climbing back up to an agape Lucia. "Come on, there's not much time!"

"How did you..." she started.

"Mirages! I knew that Gray Wolf wouldn't make such an obvious mistake. Somewhere in that mess are a few monol, projecting that illusion, to distract you while the real force comes in from behind!" exclaimed Pixie, flying back toward the wall as fast as she could. "Those two guardswomen... Blast it all!" Swooping low, Pixie took a deep breath as she approached the waiting guards. "Forget them, they're illusions! Moo's attack is coming from the sea! Come quickly, there isn't much time!" she shouted. The Guardswomen looked at each other in confusion; Pixie swung back around and repeated the shout, at the same time an explosion sounded from the other side of the city. "Great Forest I hate it when I'm right!" she muttered, as they finally started moving. Toril caught up to her after a moment.

"How did you know?" she asked.

"I was one of Moo's commanders, remember? I know Gray Wolf, and his brother both! They're too smart to have sent such a pathetic attack force against an army of pixie!" she replied. "But you wouldn't have known that. I'm willing to give odds that half of the 'attacks' that he sent here were to lull you into a false sense of security. That's the way his mind works! He plays mind games with you and then 

goes in for the kill."

"You sound like you respect him," sneered Toril.

"I do. Baddie or not, he's saved my life a few times and I saved his," replied Pixie. "You can't defeat somebody if you can't respect them; otherwise you will underestimate them. That's the 'mistake' I made with Genki, but it was one of the best mistakes I ever made." Toril frowned over that one, as Lucia dropped in on her other side.

"Now might be a good time to mention, Pixie; only a few of us know how to use the bond spells; it's not as though they've been very easy to practice out here," she said. Pixie groaned, and shook her head.

"To tell you the honest truth, Lucia, somehow that doesn't really surprise me. That's about the way my luck usually goes. Look, do you think that they'd pick it up if they had a demonstration or two?" she replied. Lucia nodded, and then started.

"But you can't! Your bondmate isn't near enough!" she exclaimed. Pixie shook her head.

"It's a chance that I'll have to take," she replied, as the partly built palace and sea wall came into view. Pixie pointed ahead, at the gaping hole that had been blasted into it; barges laden with monsters were sailing in through it. Three of them had already reached the shoreline and were unloading their cargoes; Pixie counted another six already inside the wall and heading for the beach. "You see what I meant? They would have had free run of the city while you were still trying to take down those mirages." Toril looked back.

"First and second wings, keep any more of those barges from getting in through that hole! Third and forth wings, take down as many of the ones that haven't landed yet as you can! The rest of you come with us; we'll take them hand to hand in the palace construction," she shouted. About a hundred pixie split off from their main group and started heading toward the hole, while the rest began to descend toward the beach. Pixie raised her hands.

"Those of you who are bonded, pay close attention to this spell. I'll only be able to cast it once, maybe twice at most," she shouted, before glancing at her sister and Lucia. "You might want to get back a bit," she told them. Toril frowned, but Lucia pulled her back, nodding. Pixie grasped at the bond for one quick moment, and then took a deep breath. Slowly, she started drawing forth the power, drinking it in from the bond and from deep within herself. She pulled on it, letting it pool until she thought that she would burst from holding it in. Between her hands, the energy began to gather, its silver-blue light washing away even the sunlight, yet still she pulled more and more into it. The orb of energy grew, until it was a sphere bigger then her head. Pixie head gasps and awed sounds from behind her; still she strained a little more. Then suddenly, she knew, just as she had known when she'd cast the spell against the scaled jells, that the time was right. Time seemed to slow down, and she turned slightly, aiming the sphere at the third ship, just as it landed on the beach. Then she let it go.

The sphere flashed away from her; a few of the monsters that were just getting off the barge looked up in surprise, one dino pointing just before it slammed into him, and detonated. With a snap, time jerked back into motion, and light blasted out from the explosion, too bright to see past. An incredible roar filled the air, shaking her down to her very core; somehow the light kept getting brighter. Then finally it started to dwindle away, at the same time the exhaustion of casting it slammed into her; Pixie felt herself drop a little before suddenly Eve and Jana were on either side of her, giving her a little support. Shaking her head, and taking a few deep breaths, she nodded to them, and then looked ahead. The sea was slowly spilling into a deep crater that marked where the barge had been only a moment before; not far away, the other monsters of Moo's strike force were standing, frozen. Taking a few more breaths, Pixie pulled away from them, and glanced back at Toril and the others.

"That, students, is what is called a bond-spell. Any questions?" she asked. As one collective group, they shook their heads. "Then why are we still flying up here, instead of down there, cleaning up that mess?" With a start, Toril shook her head, and then put on a determined scowl.

"Guardswomen of Tularia! Charge!!" she shouted. Lucia came up beside her as the others flashed by.

"Will you be all right?" she asked. Pixie nodded.

"I'm going to sleep like the dead tonight, but I've still got fight left in me today," she replied grimly, before diving toward the battle. Toril fell in beside her, and Pixie raised her eyebrow at her.

"I didn't become Queen by standing by while others did my fighting for me, Pixie," she said. "And I'll be damned if I'm going to let you out of my sight before I get the chance to talk to you about home, whether or not you've torn my people apart," she added. Pixie smirked.

"Oh, is that so?" she asked. Toril gave her a dry look.

"That is so, by order of the Queen," she replied. Pixie shook her head.

"And here I thought I was supposed to be the bossy one of us," she muttered, as they dropped to a landing in the middle of the battle. A pair of jells flowed up, hands already forming into weapons. Almost as one, Toril and she flung blasts of lightning at them; the spells crashed through them and the jells were blown apart. Pixie shook her head. "Slimeballs." 

Despite Pixie's annihilation of that third barge, there had still been about four hundred monsters between the other two ships, and they were crack troops, as Pixie had known Gray Wolf would send. The battle started to stretch on, blurring into a mess of pain and heat, death and screams. Pixie ducked back to dodge one blast, and felt another attack flash by just over her ear; a split second later she saw a pixie jerk, and clutch at her back as a black worm's poison stinger buried itself there. She slowly sank toward the ground; Pixie twisted and threw an ice blast at the black worm, freezing it solid. Beside her, Toril flung a lightning bolt at a tiger, as he slipped around two pixie that were grappling with a golem; the tiger was thrown back with a yelp of pain.

Barely before he had fallen away, two more leapt up in his place. Pixie barely had time to get off her lightning spell before they slammed into her and Toril; for a moment she had her breath knocked away as the full weight of the tiger pressed down on her. Then suddenly the weight vanished; Pixie opened her eyes to see the tiger vanishing into a Lost Disk; more than that, Gray Wolf's other troops were running back toward the barges. Shaking her head to clear it from the blow, Pixie stood, turning toward Toril to see if she needed any help. She was just in time to see another Lost Disk forming, and Toril staring at her in surprise, hand slowly touching the bloody mess that her neck had become. Pixie stood, frozen, as other monsters flashed by. Slowly, Toril reached out toward her, her fingertips stained red. Then she made a gurgling sound, and tipped forward, skin already beginning to glow. Too late, Pixie tried to cast a healing spell on her, but Toril's form faded away too fast; by the time she'd finished the spell, Toril was already a Lost Disk.

"The Queen!" gasped a bruised and bleeding Lucia, as she stumbled up beside her. Pixie slowly looked at her, as she felt something snap deep inside her. Lucia's eyes suddenly widened, as if she'd felt it. "No child! You might have survived one, but you can not do that twice, not without your bondmate here! NO!" she exclaimed, grabbing at Pixie's arm. Pixie pulled away from her, as she spread her wings and leapt into the air. Somewhere in her mind, a voice screamed that it was over, and that there was no need for this, but... Looking down, Pixie saw that most of Gray Wolf's troops had already reboarded the barges. Dimly she was aware of Lucia shouting something to her, but blocked it out, as she started drawing out the energy for her most powerful spell again. She saw a few of the monsters pointing up at her, as the sphere of power began to form again; some of them leapt overboard. Pixie scowled grimly, even as she felt herself teetering on the edge of consciousness.

She honestly didn't care, anymore, and as the orb flashed away, and she felt herself falling, she actually found herself laughing.

  


"...very weak, my large friend. I do not know when she'll wake up, but she is still alive..." came a voice. Pixie slowly opened her eyes, swallowing a few times.

"Define... alive..." she groaned softly, turning her head a little. She blinked a few times, as she saw Big Blue's head, stuck in through the large window on the side of the room; Lucia, who was standing beside him, gave her an astounded look. 

"Pixie! You're awake!" she gasped. "You truly survived..." Pixie winced, as she slowly pushed herself up on her elbows.

"Again, define survived," she groaned. "I thought I told you to wait at the lake, Blue..."

"It's been a week and a half, Master Pixie," he told her dryly. Pixie blinked, and looked at Lucia.

"I sent Tara south the minute the battle ended; it's taken them this long to get back," she explained. "You've been out since the battle." Pixie shook her head, trying to clear away a little of the haze. 

"I can barely remember," she replied, before sighing, as an image of Toril's last expression flashed before her eyes. "But I remember enough." Lucia gave her a sympathetic look, before growing more serious.

"Pixie... Great Forest, I know that I should let you rest, but... The others of the First Generation and I met a few days ago. We... decided among ourselves that we wanted you to stay, if you would. With Toril gone... well, by now, all of the younger pixie know that it was you that kept them from catching us off guard, and that you are... were her sister," she said quietly. Pixie looked at her for a long moment, and then shook her head.

"No," she replied quietly. Lucia started.

"No? But..."

"No, Lucia. To be frank, I don't want the job... I can't be tied down here. I made Genki a promise, once, that Big Blue and I would join him and his friends," she said quietly. "When it comes down to it, I don't belong here," she finished. Lucia opened her mouth to protest again, but then paused, and shook her head.

"No... I suppose that I can't say that your answer really surprises me, Pixie. To tell you the truth, I suppose that I was half expecting it," she said quietly. "I don't know what we'll do, but... We'll go on. If nothing else, we will go on at that." Pixie nodded.

"She's not gone, just yet," she told her quietly. "If Genki and the others do succeed..." Lucia nodded.

"I know the Legend of the Phoenix, child. I know," she told her, before shaking her head. "You need sleep, child. Sleep." For a moment, Pixie thought about refusing, but then just shook her head, and lay back on the bed.

"Just... for a few hours," she said softly, before dozing off again.

  


"Thank you, for your help, Pixie," said Eve. Pixie paused in tightening the straps of her pack, and looked at the younger woman.

"I did what I had to do, Eve; that's all," she replied, smiling a little to take the bite out of it. "In the end... I honestly can't say if I've helped more than I've hurt yet or not yet. Who knows... maybe, after everything is over, I'll come back to see what happened." Big Blue lightly touched her shoulder, and handed her Moo's Medallion. She looked at it for a moment; Leana frowned.

"Why do you still wear that, if you no longer serve that tyrant?" she asked. Pixie shook her head.

"It's not a matter of serving him, Leana. It's a reminder. A reminder of what I was... what I might end up being again, if I turn wrong. And... I suppose that part of it is pride. For a long time, I was this person," she said, tilting the medallion a little. "But somehow, I managed to pull free. I needed help, but I did," she finished, as she settled it back onto her tunic. Then she shook her head, and looked at Tara, who was holding a fussing Tori, and smiled slightly, as she withdrew the long, thin case that contained the shell chain. "You know, my sister and I found these shells almost two hundred and forty years ago; our grandmother set them on chains, and gave one back to each of us, so that we'd never forget our link," she told her, before shaking her head. "Somehow, I managed to keep a hold of mine all that time... but I think now is the time I finally passed it along. This was my link to my sister... my ties to the past. Tori, though, might just be the first of the future... but if she doesn't remember the past, she's doomed to repeat it." Slowly, she handed the case to Tara. "Will you see that she gets it, when she's old enough to understand?" Tara slowly nodded.

"Yes... Thank you, Pixie," she replied. Pixie nodded, and turned to Lucia. The elderly woman smiled at her.

"I know that you'll say no again, but I have to ask, if for nothing more than a clear conscience... Will you stay, and at least help guide us while we rebuild... and reforge our world?" she asked. Pixie smiled in spite of herself, and squeezed the older woman's shoulder.

"As I said, I can't... I made a promise to Genki that we'd join them," she said, before smiling. "The least that I owe him, after his gift, is to not break that promise." Lucia nodded.

"I had to ask, Pixie. I wish you luck... Tularia will always be open to you," she told her. Pixie nodded, and then, on impulse, embraced the elderly woman.

"Thank you... for reminding me that I'm not the only one that can make mistakes," she told her quietly. Lucia nodded slowly, as Pixie backed up a bit, and then jumped up to Big Blue's shoulder. "Blue... North." He nodded, and started plodding away from the city. "You know," she said softly, "I think Golem was right about us, Blue." Her companion gave her a sidelong look, raising his eyebrow.

"About?" he asked placidly.

"We really don't know... how to wave good bye," she told him softly. Big Blue frowned for a moment.

"Perhaps," he rumbled slowly, as he continued walking, "it is not that we don't know how... but only that we do not wish to say farewell, for that would be an ending." Pixie raised an eyebrow at him, and then smiled in spite of herself.

"I think you've been spending too much time around Golem."

   [1]: mailto:Platinum_Dragon@usinternet.com



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